Love and Loss
by Shan Jeniah
Summary: What happened behind the scenes in "Home" and its aftermath? Were Trip and T'Pol the only ones who suffered? Or was there more to this story than even they knew? Some scenes will contain sex; I will identify them and may offer T rated versions in the future.
1. Promises and Choices

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 _ **Trip, T'Pol, and Star Trek: Enterprise belong to Paramount, even if Paramount has forgotten all about them...**_

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene story which occurs** **during** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode** **,** **"Fusion** **;" and** **"Damage."**_

 _ **This story explores one possible reason Koss might have been willing to allow T'Pol to break their engagement, to live away from Vulcan, and why he later dissolved the marriage.**_

 _ **This** **chapter** **is rated** **T** **for sexual** **themes** **.**_

 _ **Update, June 5, 2016: I will be moving through this story in the next weeks, revising some rather glaring errors I've discovered and enacting an overall embetterment. Since the current word count is over 5OK, and I'm also involved in several other projects, patience is greatly welcomed, as are reviews that point out any typos, glitches, or whathaveyou I haven't corrected yet.**_

 _ **My aim, as always, is to provide the very best stories I can write. I love feedback, even less than stellar reviews, because there is so much to learn from them. Lay 'em on me! =D**_

* * *

 **Promises and Choices**

The man stood in one of the many sheltered places, staring out at the windswept plain. It was his habit to come here, weekly, since his return to his homeworld. He had not realized how deeply a place could settle into one, become, against all logic, a part of oneself.

But it was so of the Fire Plains. They were a part of him, and he of them, and here he found a solace and grounding that eluded him in the rest of his living. He came here to ponder his people; those who had lived and died untold ages ago - no, that was not true, for the statuary's chronological origins had been determined and verified in 17 disparate ways. There was no doubt that they had been created 150 centuries prior, nor that they'd eroded into something very different from what their unnamed creators intended.

But Kov found comfort in allowing himself to think there was no means of determining their age, just as the sculptors had disappeared into the sands of history. It was a delusion that wouldn't be easily suffered on this world, but he had lived nearly a decade away from it, learning of the wider universe, of other species who thought and felt and lived differently, and of himself.

So he came weekly to the Fire Plains, at a time when they were most often deserted, and there he pondered the nature of his soul, his passion, and whether he was willing, still, to be the hidden t'hy'la of a man who would not claim him openly, nor admit the nature of his desires.

Kov stood in his favored spot, and confronted his emotions regarding the man _he_ would claim most eagerly. Time was growing short. Within the next several years, they would both undergo the pon farr. He couldn't leave it to chance, or to Koss to choose, indefinitely. He must assure he had a suitable mate; he was certain it couldn't be a woman - he had never had the slightest pull in that direction.

He was uncertain it could be anyone but Koss. Or anyone but _him_ , for Koss.

Koss stubbornly refused to yield to the logic of the situation, and was just as steadfast at resisting the emotional aspects.

Kov stood for some time before he became aware of two figures moving among the sculptures. They were too distant to make out the specifics of identity, other than that there seemed to be a slender, graceful female, and a larger male, lighter in coloring than was common. Something about the way they moved, lingering, their bodies seeming at times to - to _merge_ \- spoke of a freedom rarely publicly displayed.

Kov was certain that they were a pairbonded couple, perhaps just beyond their first pon farr, or perhaps readying for it, when Vulcans were likeliest to forget the proprieties that surrounded physical contact, and to respond instead in a more instinctive manner, as they Burned and forged their bond.

Perhaps there was an impropriety in watching, when they couldn't know they were being observed. The position of the sun, and his location in a shadowed nook on the side of the cliffs overlooking the plains, would make him invisible. He was too distant for a female to scent, even if he had not been downwind of them. However, Kov found something very agreeable in their freedom, their connection, something he longed for with his own t'hy'la, who had thus far denied it, except in private.

Kov watched, as they explored, and watched as they made their way to the cliffs- and stood outlined at a viewpoint -

They were close enough now that he could see them, and smell the stomach-twisting scent of female desire, and the unsettling smell of a human.

He'd met them, three years ago, on their ship. Trip Tucker was a skilled engineer, more intuitive and inquisitive than any being Kov had ever met. He'd found the human as fascinating as Tolaris had found T'Pol, the quiet but intense young woman said to have, as an infant, dared to touch a flame, and who had served seven months, already, as a member of this human crew.

She was also the former Promised of his t'hy'la.

Tolaris had claimed her with jealous insistence, and it wasn't until after he forced a meld on her, and Kov, as the most powerful melder on the _Valkness_ , had been called to determine the extent of the crime, that he had learned her truth, and Trip's.

She remained with _Enterprise_ because she was Awakening, and couldn't or wouldn't leave the human engineer. She seemed unaware of her own motivation, but that made it no less so. It was likely that Trip had learned about Vulcan marriage customs from her. With his insistence that regret was not an emotion anyone should experience if there was a choice, it was possible he had some part in her decision not to honor her Promising arrangement.

If so, Trip had been a better friend to Kov than he knew. Kov had hoped, since, that the human and T'Pol might find their way to one another, although it would certainly be difficult, given how much differed between the two species. Difficult, but the connection between them was strong, and would likely grow stronger, if they continued to live and work in such close proximity.

* * *

"Marry him?!" The exclamation, human and uncontrolled, rang out across the space between.

Kov knew the prohibitions against listening to private conversation. But, as they spoke, he moved slowly closer- so that, by the time T'Pol's apology was made, and rejected, and the engineer walked off, leaving her alone, he was close enough to hear something he had never before heard - the sounds of a Vulcan woman sobbing.

The Vulcan woman Koss would marry, had sought to marry, without telling Kov anything of his plans.

He wondered if he ought to approach her, if there was anything he could say that would comfort her, in this collision of a Vulcan life and her own desires. He knew the nature of that conflict intimately well.

While Kov was still considering it, Trip came back, running, despite the dangers a human faced on this world. He didn't stop until he reached the place where she stood, staring out at the plains and into her soul, tears still streaming down her face, which was turned away, although she must hear him.

"Oh, pepperpot," Trip said, or perhaps Kov misunderstood, through his labored breathing. Foolish, and perhaps deadly, for one of his species to run so, beneath the sun, which was only slightly past zenith.

"You came back." T'Pol spoke in a choked whisper, as she turned, quivering visibly. Her arousal odor ought to be more tolerable, here on the open air, but it seemed to overwhelm all other scents. It was a potent message of readiness any Vulcan male could read; could a human male do the same?

"Sorry - I left. Guess I could get - a hell of a lot better at - taking bad news." Human fingers lifted in an ouz'hesta - Kov was fascinated, but not surprised, that this man would have learned the manner that was suitable to express affection, on this world. He had been curious about Vulcan ways three years ago; it seemed he had considerably greater motivation now – because the woman's pheromone secretions made it apparent that they were now consummated mates.

T'Pol studied his fingers for a breath or two, then met them with her own, and they drew in a breath, together. For an instant, as Trip sank to one knee before her, their fingers joined, hers caressing their way through the first posture, Kov thought he felt a resonance of what was passing between them.

"Marry me, pepperpot. They want you married, _get_ married. To _me_ , T'Pol, not to that guy who came to your door to coerce you."

"You would marry me, Trip?" There was deep emotion in her voice. That, and her earlier sobbing, spoke of a woman who was, perhaps, in some sense, what she had once labeled the crew of the _Valkness_ \- V'Tosh Katur, a Vulcan without logic, at least as regarded the compelling blonde human. Kov felt no distaste for her compromised reason – what else should she be, with her t'hy'la?

"Well, you're Cinderella, and I'm the Prince, remember? I married you in another timeline, didn't I?" Kov wondered if these were things she understood, experiences they had shared. The human breathed for a moment, and Kov remembered what he'd said about regret. Trip was wise, and heeded his own advice. "T'Pol, you're so deep inside me. We're a team. I'd be honored to marry you- and, nothing between us would have to change, if you didn't want it to. You can keep your own quarters, and live your life as you see fit. Let me help you out of this."

T'Pol's unsettled emotional state was evident in the small shifting motions of her body, motions children were taught to still. Vulcan children – from what Kov had seen on _Enterprise,_ if human children were taught such skills, they seemed to surrender them in adulthood.

"Vulcan law would penalize me for any marriage contract entered into while my betrothal is still extant. By removing their objections to the pairing, Koss's parents have renewed the obligation entered into when he and I were children."

Kov watched her, fascinated - he'd never seen any Vulcan move so; there was something about it that echoed the kinetic nature of her mate, who turned half away, then back, then used his free hand to wipe at his mouth and through his hair.

Kov noted that he never broke the contact made by their fingers, as T'Pol's danced through the second pose. Her scent was thick in the air; he needed to repress the urge to cough, or move away, because he wanted, perhaps needed, to know what would be decided.

Would Trip succeed in convincing her? Would that change anything, between he and Koss?

"And you don't have any way to opt-out of this?" The human echoed her pose, then waited. His manner suggested he had an understanding of the nature and significance of such caresses.

"No." But the young woman flinched, and Kov was nearly certain that she was considering the challenge, as he was.

"Are you going to be OK?" Trip rose to his feet, but maintained the contact, as T'Pol began to deepen the ouz'hesta to third pose, her fingers daring to move up over his hand, in a gesture inappropriate for any public place. "I mean, you won't - "

"I no longer need trellium to access my emotions, Trip." Kov didn't know what trellium was, but he understood that her mate was concerned for her well-being, and that she was not precisely telling him that she would be well.

He was certain that Trip knew it, as well, by the way he watched her, by the paired fingers of his other hand, with stroked down her cheek in an intimate gesture of affection that was unacceptable anywhere but in the privacy of one's home. Koss had touched him so, last night, when they were together.

"What is this Koss guy going to think about - about who you are, now? _How_ you are? I'm guessing he won't be expecting a wife who yells at him when he pisses her off. Not that he'd have a clue what 'pissed off', means - or how short a temper you can have, sometimes, pepperpot." He smiled at that, and the fingers not engaged in the ouz'hesta slipped beneath her chin, lifting it slightly.

"I attempted to warn him. He wasn't interested in learning specifics. Therefore, he assumes the risk."

Human laughter punctured the quiet of the Fire Plains. "Serves him right. I hope he pisses you off plenty, then." Trip drew his arm back toward his body, slowly, their joined fingers bringing T'Pol to him, yet still allowing her the space to break away, and maintain her distance. But the woman made no attempt to resist as Trip brought her against his body, wrapping his other arm around her waist, curling over the swell of her hip.

Kov had never seen another couple embrace, so. T'Pol had grown daring, in the time since he had last seen her. It pleased him that his Chosen would no doubt learn that he'd contracted to marry a woman who wouldn't comply to the traditional role of a Vulcan wife, if such actions defined her typical behavior. Perhaps, she wouldn't even be acceptable.

Kov wondered if that would be agreeable to her. Certainly, she had been pressured; the intensity of her interaction with her Chosen was the proof that she was not agreeing out of any personal interest in joining herself to Koss. She had spoken of negotiations, and of leaving again, with _Enterprise_.

Did Koss agree to her terms in that, with the intention of continuing their private relationship as though nothing had changed between them? Could he truly believe that Kov would accept that? He'd spent years away, because Koss wouldn't terminate the Promising to this woman, who was now preparing to formalize the pairing.

As he watched his human friend holding a Vulcan woman, heard the sounds of their lips connecting in a way that was, at once, alien and intimate, Kov knew that he couldn't go to Koss tonight. Couldn't share the evening meal, and what would follow, without this interaction between Trip and T'Pol in his mind.

Something rare and beautiful was being taken from this man and woman. Kov didn't need to know the specifics of their connection, or the details of how humans pairbonded, to see and feel it in the way T'Pol's head sank down to her mate's chest, the way he applied neuropressure to her neck and face, the way she accepted his chaotic human emotions without any visible discomfort.

* * *

"When, T'Pol?" The question burst out, after a time of silence.

"When?" The woman tipped her head up to study her mate's face, as though reading clues in its expression.

"When do you marry this guy?"

"It is customary for me to visit Koss at dawn, to inform him of my acceptance and readiness to formalize our parents' arrangement. The rest of the day is traditionally spent in meditation, and, the following day, the ceremony will be held."

"Can you wait a day to tell him?" It was the note that Kov remembered well, one that suggested that the human had an idea.

"What purpose is there in delaying, Trip?"

"To give us just one more day. Something to treasure, and hold onto. Something for when this is too much."

"I will wait a day, Trip." The young woman made no comment on the illogic of his statement, or the emotion that clearly motivated it. Her hand moved, with certainty, down the midline of her mate's body, but her gaze never left his face, even when his breath faltered, then accelerated . "It would be most illogical to waste a moment, when there is so much to treasure, and to hold to, and our time is finite." Her whisper was throaty, and the man moaned softly, his desire scent rising to commingle with hers.

"Right here - out in the open? Where anyone can see? You sure about this, pepperpot?"

"I've never been so certain of anything, Trip. If I must live as a Vulcan wife, let me first have the abandonment of these hours with you - to be with you - as we _are_ , as we have been, as I would choose to be, if things were not as they are. Let us, as you might say, ravage, relish, and revel, for every breath we are free to do so - beginning with this one."

'Awww, hell, woman -you're damned irresistible when you quiver and get handsy...just wish it didn't ever have to end..."

"Trip."

"Yeah?"

"Be here, now," T'Pol admonished. "Otherwise, we're wasting time, and it's currently our most precious resource."

"T'Pol?" They were sinking together down to the sandy floor of their vewpoint, heedless of any possibility that they might be observed. Were all human couplings this spontaneous, this unconcerned with discretion? Had she changed so much, or was the woman he'd met on the human ship only a mask, a camouflage to hide the untamed spirit of the infant who had dared to touch the flame?

"Yes?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

"I intend to do far more than that."

Kov slipped away, not wanting to intrude further. As he made his way, careful to be silent lest she hear him, he considered what he had witnessed.

T'Pol would marry Koss, because it was a means to helping her mother. Kov suspected that, ultimately, any help rendered would be soon enough undone, given T'Les's assumed involvement with a controversial group. But perhaps T'Pol, who had been occupied elsewhere, knew nothing of the political and social unrest, or her mother's role in it.

The marriage wouldn't be a sexual one, unless Koss desired her at pon farr. All indications were that he wouldn't; Kov was intimately aware of the direction his desires followed. Women had never held appeal to either of them. It was what had brought them together.

Koss wouldn't demand that she be monogamous - certainly not once she returned to the human starship. It would be possible for she and Trip to continue their relationship - even the sexual aspects of it.

No. He was thinking in strictly Vulcan terms, but Trip Tucker wasn't Vulcan. He remembered a conversation in the Mess Hall of _Enterprise_ , where Trip and Lieutenant Reed had seemed -distressed - by the thought that Vulcan males need mate only once every seven years. Did he know of pon farr, now? He hadn't then; of that, Kov was certain.

Perhaps, the human couldn't separate the fact of her marriage from his own obvious emotional attachment to her. A species that mated so eagerly and frequently, without a life-or-death imperative driving the mating cycle, might not see the necessity for the legal security of a mate in Vulcan society.

Did Trip wish to marry T'Pol himself, as he had offered to do? Did he have reasons other than to spare her the unwanted marriage to Koss? Could a human and a Vulcan find enough common ground upon which to build a stable and sustaining union? Could they form a bond?

Had they, already?

What would it mean, to T'Pol, to marry Koss, if she was already bound to Trip?

Would she call the challenge? Could Trip survive it?

As he left the Fire Plains in his aircar, Kov debated whether he should take some action, to secure his right to his Chosen, to protect the right of his friend and the woman he clearly desired - the woman Koss would marry, in three days, if there was no change in the current circumstances.

Perhaps she wouldn't call the challenge. She wouldn't risk her mate's life, Kov was certain of that. More, if her intent was to offer her mother some protection, then she was obligated to complete the Promising. It wouldn't be logical to call the challenge.

But she clearly thought now in ways that weren't solely logical. She'd found emotion, had apparently sought it out. She'd become more like his former shipmates than she might think.

He would speak to Koss. That much was certain. There could be no delaying, if his Chosen intended to marry T'Pol, and hadn't informed him. It was his stubborn refusal to speak his truth to his own parents, and thereby negate the Promising, that had led Kov to join the crew of the _Valkness._ If not for the evidence Tolaris presented that there was danger in such emotional abandon, and his father's terminal illness, he would still be with the explorers.

They had renewed their connection upon Kov's return, and it had seemed to be agreeable to them both. But that Koss would choose now to pursue marriage with T'Pol, and not speak to him about it, was proof that it was not what Kov thought it to be.

Would it be intrusive, to offer himself to T'Pol as a potential champion? He could make it clear that he would release her, if he were victor. What would Koss choose, if Kov stood against him in the challenge, if the choice was to abandon the marriage, or face his own Chosen in the battle to the death?

There was a part of Kov that needed to know, and another that needed to simply believe that Koss would choose him, openly and willingly. Illogical, to be so torn.

But Koss had chosen to honor his parents' decision, and T'Pol, who was, at this moment, claiming her own Chosen openly and willingly on the Fire Plains below, would marry him to save her mother's career. Her intention was admirable, logical, and Vulcan. Could a human understand? Could a Vulcan convince her that the situation was not as she had likely been told, or not wholly so?

Should he try? He had been clear, when he left Vulcan. If Koss would follow tradition, and his parents' will, even when it was opposed to the reality of his being, then he must live with the consequences of his compliance. It was no different, now. If Koss wasn't willing to state that he was drawn to males rather than females, thereby securing the right to choose a mate more in keeping with his needs, and freeing T'Pol to do the same, there was no point in any further connection between them.

Kov, not as bound as most Vulcans to emotional repression, wept in the privacy of his aircar, then returned to his father's home to meditate. He could take no action, until T'Pol announced her intentions to Koss; it would violate her privacy to do so, and reveal to her and to Trip that he had watched them in a private encounter.

So he would wait until zenith, two days hence - and then, he would speak to Koss, and learn whether they were still Chosen, or whether he would, by necessity, need to Choose another.


	2. Views of a Wedding

_**Author's Notes:**_

 _ **Disclaimer and detailed story notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices".**_

 _ **This chapter is rated T for sexual suggestiveness and references to drug and alcohol use.**_

 _ **This story explores the undercurrents during T'Pol and Koss' wedding. What if the priest marrying them sensed the bond Trip and T'Pol share, long before T'Pol knows what it means? What if Koss did want someone else, but wasn't willing to disappoint his parents?**_

* * *

 _ **Update, June 11, 2016: I'm revising some rather glaring errors I've discovered and enacting an overall embetterment of this story. Since the current word count is over 5OK, and I'm also involved in several other projects, patience is greatly welcomed, as are reviews that point out any typos, glitches, or whathaveyou I haven't corrected yet.**_

 **My aim, as always, is to provide the very best stories I can write. I love feedback, even less than stellar reviews, because there is so much to learn from them. Lay 'em on me! =D  
**

* * *

 **Views on a Wedding**

A young woman knelt upon the pressed sands of her homeworld, her fingers lifting to match those of the man across from her. They hovered just at the range at which bioelectric pulses could be sensed - the prelude to the joining. His energy felt strange. Too calm; too still. She was required to meet the man's blue eyes, but it was difficult to do so. She was aware of a deep, illogical desire to refuse, to rise, to flee...to burst into tears that would be understood by only one person here.

She was a Vulcan. She would not cry.

* * *

A little off, a man stood in borrowed finery, watching. her fingers lift, in concert with the man kneeling across from her. He wondered what she felt; was it different than what she felt with him? Was it _better,_ with a Vulcan man - a man of her own species? He could only see her face in a thin slice of profile. He wanted almost desperately to charge across this damned sand garden, grab her, run away, pull out a communicator he didn't have and demand a beamup from a ship that was 16 light-years away, in Spacedock.

Instead, he stood there, and watched her preparing to sacrifice herself.

He was on Vulcan. He wouldn't cry.

* * *

Aesthetically, she was beautiful. Almost, illogically, he could imagine that she had been sculpted by a master. He was privileged to have the chance to combine her genetics with his own. So his parents had declared, since they were children, and chosen for one another. He, however, was uncertain it was enough. Ought children not be raised in a home where a certain affection. or at the least regard, existed between their parents? Where both were available to them? He could feel the resistance, the distance, that separated them; she would never feel other than a stranger to him, and she wanted nothing more than that of him. In truth, she wanted this as little as he did. Perhaps he should end this, now, before the next posture began.

They were Vulcan. They must try.

* * *

She remembered a dimly lit room, and music that pulled her in. A man who Awakened her, with his music, his smile, the covert interest, and the recognition. The way the music flowed through them both, weaving them into one another. She had imagined this day, then, with the fog of his world rising impossibly from the dry sands of hers. But he had been across from her then, and not behind. His blue eyes she would look into willingly, eagerly, and touch the life within him through their joined and trembling fingers...she would join her life to his, and take a most illogical joy in doing so. Except that she was Promised to Koss, was kneeling here with Koss.

How was she supposed to marry Koss, with the feel of Trip's cool human cheek still rough and cool upon her lips? With the clasp of his hand around the small gift she offered secretly still sending Awakened tingles sizzling through her?

How was she to bear it?

* * *

She was doing this for her mother. But he knew, it was also penance, for what she felt were the wrongs she'd done. Maybe that wasn't very logical, and it wasn't very likely anyone on this world would understand, but he did. It's why he was standing here, feeling the heat of her soft hungry lips on his cheek, the press of whatever she'd slipped into his hand when she clasped it. Up on her toes again to kiss him - had he gotten around to telling her how incredibly sexy that was to him, as though she couldn't wait for him to bend enough for her to reach? As though she couldn't get enough, soon enough...

It had been so brief, so bold, so reactionary, for her to do such a thing, on her way to be married to someone picked for her when she was only a little girl. His heart swelled with pride, and with the sorrow of knowing it would be the last kiss between them, the last time her sudden ardor would jolt through him like a plasma arc...

How was he going to bear it?

* * *

It was nearly time. Three more breaths, and it would be too late to stop; too late even for the challenge - but surely, she would not call it. Her young human, for whom she had dared show affection, even here, could not win. Koss would do as he must, as he had been commanded. He had no wish, though, to give her the body of her lover as tribute. He hoped, for them both, that, once the ceremony was complete, the formalities tended, they might go on with their lives as they had lived them. He wished her to have the human, when she left, if she desired him. He wished, too, to have his Chosen - but it might be that his refusal to challenge the command to marry T'Pol had cost the chance at the life he wished for himself.

The third breath was exhaled; the priest knelt into the waiting moment, and joined their fingers, sealing them. It was as it was.

He would bear it.

* * *

Her fingers were sealed to Koss's - and all T'Pol could feel was Trip. His emotions lapped through her from behind and beneath the surfaces needed for this joining. Her emotions were not required. As well, since they would not leave Trip. She could feel his hurt, his pride, his pain...and, together, as the vows were spoken, binding her to another, their two minds, already deeply entwined, remembered...

She allowed herself the dream, the memories of their voyage here...

 _"When I first came aboard, you offered your hand."_

 _"And you turned me down cold, pepperpot. Turned your back on me, even - not that I minded the view."_

 _"If I had I touched you then..."_

 _"Would it have like what happened in Decon, after Rigel 10?"_

 _"Given the intimacy of the touch, perhaps something far more inappropriate - such as the incident in the Suliban cell."_

 _"Wonder what the Captain would've said about that? And if I would have been brave enough then to do anything about it?"_

 _"You might have had little choice. It's perhaps as well that we didn't find out. Captain Archer would certainly have replaced us both. It would have been - intensely uncomfortable - to have had to explain the reasons to Ambassador Soval."_

 _He'd laughed and wrapped both arms around her, to pull her onto his lap. "You looked at my arm like it was attached to a considerably lower life form, you know. Hurt my feelings. All that smoldering interest at Fusion, following your scent." He nuzzled her neck, and T'Pol shivered into the touch, undone once again by the alien intimacy. "Mmmm," her t'hy'la breathed. "I love when you go all mineral, citrus and sandalwood."_

 _She inclined her head in silent question; Trip took it as invitation to slip another morsel of pecan pie into her mouth. She nibbled and suckled contentedly at his fingers, seeking crumbs and deeper sweetness. He groaned softly, and shifted his weight - this form of touching did fascinating things in his lap. She moved with him, emboldened by the intoxicating effect of the pie, which was still mostly sugar._

 _"You smell different - well, hell, you never beat around the bush, so why should I? - you smell different, when you're aroused. I don't have an exact name for what you smell like - Vulcan desert things, maybe - but it reminds me of citrus and sandalwood, and walking through the steam at Yellowstone. Did things to me at Fusion, and in the Cap'n's Ready Room, too. I had to pretend I didn't notice it, and, even so, I was mighty glad you left the room first, so I could avoid disgracing myself. Maybe if I knew then what it meant, I wouldn't have worried so much." He was back at her neck; a sensual counterpoint to the effect of the pie merging with their freedom and the deeper connections they'd forged over the last days..."Citrus and sandalwood again," he murmured, and then they'd needed to say nothing, for some time..._

The priest was signaling - the first level of joining completed. Koss's fingers slipped up the length of her fingers, around, back again to the tips - an invitation to deeper connection. Three breaths, before she must give response.

T'Pol felt nothing but panic struggling to break free, her limbic system threatening response.

She belonged to Trip, in her soul. She suspected she would never belong to Koss.

She could refuse.

* * *

Trip watched her, waiting out those three breaths. Why was he sure she was debating it, that she was as tangled up in him and the memories as he was in her...?

But she'd told him all about the ceremony, during their stolen day. All that would happen, if she refused, was that they would wait her out. Maybe once, long ago, she might have been that rarest of women who could outlast all that her world would bring to bear. She was certainly stubborn enough...but the last year had worn her down, worn them all down, damn near shattered her beyond repair or redemption. What she'd rebuilt, she'd rebuilt in the company of humans, and Phlox, and even Porthos. She was more like them than she'd been, before, and maybe she always would be, now.

He didn't think she had the patience to win. _Please, pepperpot, don't make this any harder on yourself. You've suffered more than enough._

As though she heard him, she moved her fingers just as the third breath threatened to become a fourth. Trip stared at her moving fingers...remembering...

 _He'd been stunned when he saw what she meant by "transport" This was a sleek, swift, beautiful little Vulcan cruiser...she saw him eyeing the warp drive, and informed him that this was a private craft, and unclassified. He could tour the small engine room, and access the specifications, too, if he wished._

 _He was glad he did that right off, while she was stowing the large case she'd brought- who would've thunk T'Pol, of all people, would be a heavy packer? - because, once he got back to her in the guest cabin, they never left it again until it they had been at Vulcan Space Central for six hours. There was no reason to leave. They had ample space, nice big windows, water features and growing things, access to a very well stocked servitor, and two pilots to do the flying, too._

 _Not to mention a decadently large and comfortable bed behind a locked door._

 _"T'Pol, this is incredible. How did you manage it?"_

 _"Ambassador Soval was pleased that I was returning home, and suggested I might find his private craft pleasant, after so long among humans."_

 _"So you brought_ me _along? Is that really fair?"_

 _"Given that he almost certainly was motivated by a desire to be certain I returned to Vulcan, it seems an equitable use of the space. He stated that he wished my journey to be pleasurable and restorative, a time for rest and reflection, and bid me to do as I will. It would be an insult to fail to do so."_

 _"Is that so?"_

 _"It is. Trip, you said that you have no home to return to. For the next days, this could perhaps suffice."_

 _"Well, it's already got you, pepperpot - and this great big empty bed..."_

They'd stripped one another, and hadn't put on another stitch of clothing until they reached orbit around her world.

Her fingers returned to Koss's fingertips. Trip could almost feel them, the faint scars of a baby who had dared to touch the flame, a woman who had dared to claim her own life.

And now chose to give it back.

He watched the priest gesture, take them through the next painstaking set of vows, and then Koss's fingers were moving again.

"You honor T'Pol by standing for her." T'Les, at his elbow. Probably had no idea how furious he was at her, for putting her daughter in this impossible position, for arranging such a damn foolish thing in the first place. He didn't have to acknowledge her praise, now.

He could refuse.

* * *

The woman's fingers trembled; her arousal scent wafted on the breeze. It was said to be the most delicately balanced fragrance on Vulcan, the pheromone release of an aroused woman. At a marriage ceremony, when the bride was brought to the point of so palpably signaling her sexual readiness, it was seen as the ultimate indicator of a successful pairing, one that could grow beyond what was required, to encompass all that the Vulcan heart and soul and mind were capable of.

It was a scent that had always triggered nausea, for him.

He hadn't understood why - until he first smelled the arousal scent of another man - and all that was within him had cleaved to it, sought after it.

And found it.

Now he scented the odor of T'Pol's arousal, and swallowed back the bile that rose to the back of his throat. He held it back, he suspected, only because he knew beyond doubting that he had not stirred such arousal in her, that she had no more interest in him as a mate than he had in her.

It was for her young human, who had Awakened her, quickened her, mated with her - and it was he and only he that T'Pol wanted now. He, and not Koss, was her Chosen. Koss remembered the story told about her - the only infant in memory to not trust the warning words. T'Pol had learned for herself what damage flame could bring. He had thought, when she first refused to return for the ceremony, that she was testing the flame of the humans. But then she'd returned to Vulcan in the company of this human male, and he had smelled her consummated state, and understood.

She had taken a mate. As he had. although they remained unconsummated.

The ritual deepened to the third level, and the priest assisted them in touching one another's telerotic centers, in the place where they had been locked together the last time they knelt together, as children. The intent was to Awaken them to each other, above all others.

But there was nothing within her for him to touch that was not already claimed by her human, and willingly given by T'Pol herself. She glowed and quivered with the urgency of the fires alighting within her. Wild fires, beyond what Vulcan could sustain. Fires born of and belonging to distant stars, another world...

"Why did you agree to this marriage, T'Pol?"

She didn't take her focus from her souldancing. Likely, she could not, with the intensity of her consummated bond threatened.

Perhaps, she could not even hear him, as strange otherworldly music wound through her. The gold-haired man stood a little off, nehind her, where she couldn't see him, but his eyes glinted with a strange light as he watched her. Until now, Koss had not known that humans could be Awakened, joined with thus. However, this Commander Tucker was within her, and she within him. Even at this level of joining, there could be no doubt.

They were bound. There was no room for him anywhere within her.

Koss felt his own arousal surging, triggered by the delving, but more by the fierce wild power of hers.

It was too late to refuse.

* * *

The priest moved them through the third level...the last level awaited, the one that would tug her away from him, break the connection that would sever him from her, give her to a man who scarcely knew her. He _couldn't_ , if he would do this to her, pull her away from her family, her anchor.

From _me_ , dammit.

He still wasn't sure how he was managing to stand here and let this happen to her - to _them_. Before he knew her he wouldn't have. But her little misshapen IDIC was in one hand, and the flat disk she'd slipped him in the other. Trip held them clasped together in front of him. He didn't have to see them, or her face, to draw comfort from them.

He remembered Charles, and how he'd interfered then, telling himself it was for her, even though Charles had been neither he nor she as Trip understood them, and had asked for nothing of him. It had, as a matter of fact, told him he was wrong, that these things were wrong for it. He'd pushed Charles too far, and Charles had died.

T'Pol already knew something of what she was sacrificing. He'd decided, almost from the start, to make this as easy on her as he could.

It was the minutes of that almost, though, when he'd first argued, then turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone...

Damn, he wished he hadn't done that.

Sure, he'd come back - it had only taken about ten minutes for the desert heat to get more powerful than his anger - at least, his anger at her. Her damned restrictive culture, though, and the way it pushed her around - not even a fireplain had enough heat to smother _that_ seething rage.

They'd finally figured out a way to outsmart her, outlast her - and he'd _left_ her there, stung by her defeat.

 _Aww, pepperpot, you fought them, as best you could. You were a supernova of resistance. And you almost made it, almost got free of that invisible hold this damned planet has on you._

This damned planet was her _homeworld._ Nothing he could do or say would ever change that. She _belonged_ to this place, the same way he belonged to Earth.

The priest was giving the last incantation, and Koss had his hand damned near up to T'Pol's elbow. Any second now, he would feel her sheared sway from him - Trip braced himself for the pain of it, of knowing she was gone forever.

* * *

The fourth and final level neared completion.T'Pol knelt across from Koss, but her soul merged and danced with her human . There was no way to reach her, where she'd gone; he would never have all of her, even if he wanted her. She had chosen for herself, even dared to reveal it openly, here. Or, perhaps, she simply couldn't resist the force of her bonding.

Who was this human, that he would support TPol as she married another? Who was he, that he did not refuse to be here, as Koss's own Chosen had done?

Was it that the man was human, or that she had claimed her right to him, to her passions, to her choice, and to her life?

Koss's Chosen had wanted that of him. He had declared his choosing of Koss to his own family, denying their arrangement. It had caused a rift with his family, and a self-imposed exile from Vulcan that had lasted nine years. Upon his return, he said that he "had no regrets". Koss thought it an odd turn of phrase, but Kov wouldn't explain it. He would say only that, if Koss was unwilling to resist his parents' determination that he marry T'Pol, who seemed, in all ways, ill-suited as Koss's wife, he could not bear to witness the joining.

He had been clear. If Koss would not resist tradition, or his parents' will, then he must live with the consequences of compliance.

But now, as T'Pol wore her quivering arousal for another as her birthright, Koss felt someone else edging in, watching from the shadowy corner outside the wall of the sand garden.

 _"T'hy'la!"_ His surprise, his moment of delight, were unseemly.

 _"T'hy'la?_ " A sharp echo, and now her eyes searched his face, her mind probed his telerotic center, relentless and reckless as the child who had touched the flame. At last, he had something of the woman's attention, and her human's, as well. He knew the full scope of the word's meaning.

The questions surged through, and between, the four, but could not be answered. Koss's soul was consumed by his t'hy'la's presence...he didn't reveal himself, except in the merging -together. T'Pol was a wiser woman than his parents had given him to believe- she returned to her own joining, allowing his to be as it would.

The priest entered into the mindlink, surveyed them all, and the manner of the two joinings. He nodded, very slightly. "This is what thee hast wrought, here, today - the depth of your joining, and what you will carry forth, into your life as bondmates. Art thee content with what has been forged?"

The request was not for two, but four. It encompassed all that existed between them, rather than merely what the law pertained to.

The human looked around, his face telegraphing emotions the woman knew the meanings of. " _What the hell's going on here? How is this - and why the hell are you asking me? I object to this entire_ proceeding - and _the practice of marrying off little kids as though that makes sense for the adults they'll become!"_

 _"Trip."_ Koss had never known that she could be so fragile. _"If you object, you will be permanently ejected from this link. From my mind."_

 _"I thought that was the basic idea."_

 _"Trip - not now. Please, trust me. Do not object. Let us have this much- if we can't have more."_

 _"All right- I don't object. I'm - what'd you say? Content. Yes. Put me down as content, heaven forbid any of the four of us get to be, I dunno, happy."_

 _"Commander Tucker, you are delaying the conclusion of the ceremony."_ Why was there a wave of pleasure blending with her thought?

 _"Sorry, pepperpot. Wasn't trying to crash your wedding. I'm content with - with 'what has been forged'."_

The assent went more quickly through the Vulcans - and then, the priest declared the marriage valid, and the link satisfactory, and they dropped their hands slowly, awareness shifting from the internal to the external.

T'Pol was his wife. He was her husband. As it had been from the time of the beginning, without change, so it was done.

* * *

"Why did you never tell me?" She could feel her control slipping; it was foolish to remain close enough to reach her husband.

Her husband. Koss was her husband. The priest had bound them, even if the memory of the link was already faded. But she knew now that he, too, desired another, and not her.

"Tell you? Have you lived so long with humans, T'Pol, that you would ask? Such things are a deeply personal matter."

"Why did you agree to the marriage? That we both preferred another is enough to secure an annulment. We need not have completed the ceremony." T'Pol heard raw emotion rising in her voice, and chose not to make any effort to suppress it. She was as she was, and Koss had said he wanted her.

Let him now see what he had negotiated for, demanded.

"I honored my parents' agreement. I complied with the law and custom of our people."

"Did you not _tell_ them?" She stalked a step nearer, balancing on the balls of her feet. Did she intend to harm him?

What did it mean that she didn't know?

"What would it have profited?"

"It would have profited us, and those to whom we've given ourselves!" She whirled away, but then spun back.. "By what right do Vulcan parents dictate the measure and scope of their childrens' lives?!" She sounded like Trip. "It's not humane!" She spat that at him through bared teeth. She was nearly close enough to touch him. He was capable of killing a human, but he had only the basic self-defense and kal-if-fee training all children were given. She could kill him, and have no husband.

He backed away a step, nearer the door, as though he could read the thought. Perhaps he could. They were bound; she was his wife. "It is custom, tradition, and law. What else is there?"

T'Pol came a step nearer. His scent enraged her. So calm, so Vulcan - unsettling. Nauseating. She thought of the years she and Trip had spent learning one another, forging a connection based not upon someone else's dictates, but instead upon who they were, upon shared experience, desire, concern, common resonances and irrevocable differences.

This man had made them sacrifice it, so that he could appease his _parents_!

"There is the fact that we now must _live_ with what they have chosen for us - what _you_ have. By what right did you do this to us - or to those we chose for ourselves?"

With a sudden flash of fury, she closed the distance, so that her body was pressing into his. Trip would be aroused by this; Koss was not. He was taller than Trip, but he seemed to fear her - of course. Her reputation in the Security Mission was well known, before _Enterpris_ e added emotional volatility he could not have failed to notice.

"You agreed." He was backed hard against the wall; T'Pol fought back the instinct to lash out, use Koss as the means of venting her emotions. "Is this the nature of your illness, T'Pol? Are you unable to control yourself?" His voice was gentle, calm. A request for information, not accusation.

"I'm more able at some times than others. However, I may choose not to _exercise_ the ability." She was shaking now - it would be a simple matter to use him as the outlet he had denied her. Koss's eyes were wide with fear - blue eyes, like Trip's.

That was enough to stop her. She fled to the room he'd given her, and dug through her bag until she found the shielded case that contained her supply of trellium-D.

* * *

Trip Tucker had been ready to pack up and get as far away from here as he could, as fast as he could. But something he didn't understand resisted. It told him he needed to stay, and T'Les had already informed him that there wouldn't be another transport leaving for Earth for three days, and it would only be logical for him to remain here until it arrived.

He hadn't wanted to stay, but he didn't have anywhere else to go. He was as polite to T'Pol's mom as he could be, under the circumstances, but told her that he'd prefer to be left alone to acclimate to the circumstances. Maybe she thought that meant meditation. He didn't know, and he really didn't care, either. He went gone straight to the guest room and closed the door.

There were two bottles of Andorian ale on the bedside table, and a small food case from _Enterprise_. The ale the Captain had forced on her - Trip's share was already gone, but T'Pol didn't have the same interest in alcohol. There was no glass, as though she knew that his pain demanded nothing less than slugging from the bottle. And there was a little note in her precise and elegant handwriting.

 _T'hy'la,_

 _Please be careful._

"Aww, hell, pepperpot..."

He decided he'd better fortify himself before he looked in the case. Three burning swigs, then he opened the case.

Pecan pie -two slices. More than enough to get her soused and remarkably silly, if she'd been here. Silly, and aroused...oh, damn.

The first bottle was gone almost before he knew it. Trip imagined feeding her the pie. He couldn't eat it himself, not while remembering her licking it from his fingers...

How the hell was he going to work with her, live on the same ship, see her in the Mess Hall, or on Movie Night, and know that she was someone else's _wife_? What was he supposed to do, just bottle up all his feelings?

He wasn't Vulcan. He _couldn't._

Was that even what she wanted? The end of that ceremony- had something happened, there? It had felt, for a minute, like he was there in her head, right with her, and Koss, and - someone else. Someone he knew? But he didn't know anyone else on Vulcan except T'Les. Couldn't have been her.

Musta been the heat. Or the pain. Nothing else made sense.

"It's just wishful thinking, anyway, Tucker. She did what she said she had to do. And you stood there like an idiot and watched her condemn herself. And that's all there is to it."

If only he wasn't sure that loving her was nothing like loving anyone else, and that losing her was the end, for him.

 _Please be careful._ It was almost like he could hear her, in his head.

"I'm tryin' pepperpot," he whispered, as he took the second bottle and the container of pie, and headed into her room - her room, where they'd spent most of the day before yesterday in bed, talking, crying, making love, storing up the moments like some secret treasure...

He could still smell her - citrus and sandalwood, but mostly sulfurous minerals, and a thick heavy layer that somehow smelled like despair... Damn...

There were two more bottles of ale, here, and another note.

 _T'hy'la,_

 _For after you've slept, and eaten, and explored your gift. Perhaps it is foolish to ask you to be careful._

The gift...

He hadn't dared look at it, just slipped it into the sleeve pocket of the robe as the ceremony was winding down to a solemn close.

Now he did. Upon one side was etched a golden slipper, and on the other, the IDIC symbol, misshapen, as though made by a small child.

No, not one flat disk. Two - two disks, magnetically sealed...

She'd felt their polarity, too...damn.

It took pressure- _considerable pressure_ , he heard in the echo of her voice - to separate the disks...

In the small hollowed place within was a data disk, small enough to fit a PADD-

Such as the one propped before her computer.

He looked at what he held, looked at the PADD.

It couldn't be a mistake.

He took the PADD, and turned it on.

 _"A Human's Guide to Vulcan Emotion,"_ he read. And then, another of her little notes. _"Please insert data disk to proceed."_

He slipped in the disk, and there she was, in her wedding garb, looking delicate, lovely - and very near tears. They were in her voice, too, when she spoke.

"Trip. I know that what I will do today will hurt you, perhaps too deeply to allow us to recover even our friendship. That I wish not to hurt you is irrelevant; you are hurting now, and perhaps this - this impulse I have to share my own feelings with you will bring you no solace, only more pain. But another version of myself said I should 'follow my heart', and it has led me to this."

Her tears broke free, but she didn't cut the recording right away. Her open tears were a rare gift; he didn't know if anyone else had ever seen them. They slipped silently down her face for a long moment, before she faded out - to be replaced with a younger, more rigid version of herself - dressed in a thigh length jacket, tight leggings, boots, and a dark cowl intended to hide what she'd never hidden from him...

The young woman spoke a date, in Vulcan, and then dark troubled eyes met the camera. "Tonight, I broke protocol. My reasons were illogical; the cost if I am discovered will be high. I took considerable risk, in leaving the compound - "

And then, that calm face evaporated, leaving her incandescent, transformed, the way she'd been, listening to the music, so long ago.

"It is illogical, but I find I do not care. For no consequence can undo what occurred tonight. Tonight, I encountered a human man named Trip. We shared – something. I can say nothing more than that; I don't know what it was, what it means, or where it will lead. I am Promised to Koss; I am expected to marry him. And yet - this tentative and undefined connection, with a man about whom I know almost nothing - a human male, with whom I share neither genetic nor cultural heritage - is already far more powerful than the mindlink I share with Koss.

"Even if I never see him again, if this few moments of connection is all that ever exists, between us, I will hold to it as the ideal of what a bond might be.

Query for Meditation:

Is it possible to share another's thoughts without touching? What does it mean that I long to see this man Trip again, and learn more of him? That I imagined kneeling upon the sands, with fog rising, and becoming _his_ wife, and not Koss'?"

"Oh, pepperpot..."

Trip opened the second bottle, and propped the PADD against the empty. One entry after another, she chronicled her journey to him. There'd been so much more going on behind that Vulcan mask than he'd guessed at. He'd fantasized about Little Miss Pointed Ears Under That Cowl. She, true to her Vulcan nature, had meditated and researched and formed theories and experiments. But she'd been a hell of a lot more consumed by him than he was by her.

She'd always taken this seriously, even when he thought she felt nothing at all. No wonder she was jealous - feeling things for an alien that nothing in her life had prepared her to feel. Feelings logic couldn't explain or suppress.

Trip watched her, as he drank, loving the little shifts in expression and tone, the gradual loosening of that taut control. After a while, he stripped out of her father's robes, and tangled into the bedding that still smelled of their lovemaking. She hadn't made the bed before she left, as though she needed to hold to this, too. Trip let himself go while pretending she was here, telling him stories, making love with him and not who-knows-where honeymooning with Koss.

He passed out to the sound of her trellium-enhanced jealousy over Amanda Cole, and her account of what happened after.


	3. A Sweet Wild Dream

_**Author's Notes:**_

 _ **Disclaimers and Story Description in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices".**_

 ** _T'Pol is caught in a spiraling emotional collapse after her marriage to Koss. There is trellium, and need that explodes in ways she can't control, and doesn't want to._**

 _ **This story is Rated Mature for sexuality, alcohol and drug use, language, and adult themes. (NSFW!)**_

* * *

 _ **Update, June 13, 2016: I'm revising some rather glaring errors I've discovered and enacting an overall embetterment of this story. Since the current word count is over 5OK, and I'm also involved in several other projects, patience is greatly welcomed, as are reviews that point out any typos, glitches, or whathaveyou I haven't corrected yet.**_

 **My aim, as always, is to provide the very best stories I can write. I love feedback, even it's a less than stellar reviews, because there is so much to learn from them. Lay 'em on me! =D**

* * *

" **A Sweet Wild Dream"**

"Are you well, wife?"

Koss stands at the entry to the room. With the trellium coursing icefire through her veins, T'Pol _feels_ him in the unwanted and as-yet unconsummated bond. Uncertainty, and a desire to see to her needs, to make this arrangement as agreeable as it can be, given the circumstances.

There is also a note of fear that inflames her own emotions.

"No, Koss, I am not well." Not remotely well. How can she be? She turns to face him, and does nothing to hide the hypospray.

He regards the device, but they are both Vulcan. Koss respects her privacy, although she wishes that he won't, that he will give her reason to lash out - any reason will suffice. Illogically, she longs to hurt him, as he's hurt her with his insistence that she honor the terms of their Promising. He's taken what she wants most, needs most.

"I am bereft." Had she meant to say it, for the hollowness of her soul to be echoed in her voice?

"'Bereft'? Is it a human word? I'm unfamiliar with its meaning." Calm. He is so calm; the emotions flow beneath, not touching his behavior. Even before the trellium, before her unprecedented Awakening to a human man, T'Pol's calm was never so complete.

"Yes, it's a human word. Our species- we numb ourselves, but humans - humans _embrace_ their emotions, Koss. To be bereft - it is to be alone when you crave the presence of another - to be adrift, without purpose or solace - yes, more human words, because there are none in Vulcan to express these feelings. I _am_ bereft."

Jealousy twists through her abdomen - she knows it well; her human helped her to learn it - and what is _he_ feeling, now? Thismarriage bond obscures her awareness of him, and she's made reckless with her need for him.

"Is there some way in which I may - alleviate your distress, my wife?"

"Yes," she snarls. "Cease calling my 'my wife', as though this is an honor. For me, it is nothing other than a prison sentence." Her hand is shaking, the hypospray tempting, cool and solid. An anchor. Like Trip. Something in her rises up, won't be stilled. She wants him to see her employ the device. She needs him to know what he's contracted to mate. She wants him to know how deeply she hates what she's done. "My name is _T'Pol_. Use that, if you must address me at all."

"T'Pol - I am at your service. If there is something that you require, or desire -"

"There is some _one_ that I desire, husband, and it's not you!"

"I won't stand in your way. If your human friend can answer those desires -"

"I didn't seek _permission_. I'll do as _I_ will, Koss. With _him,_ and with _this!_ " She arches her neck back. Trip loved to kiss and nibble the line of her arched neck, the pinnae of her ears, and her clavicle. Humans make an art and a science and a celebration of mating, and Trip delighted in lavishing her, learning her. T'Pol moans at the memory, at the remembered ecstasy of touch, and slams the hypospray against her jugular vein. She does nothing to repress the gasping shudder it brings, and she doesn't care that there will be a bruise at the injection site from the force of her assault upon what remains of her sanity.

"What does the hypospray contain, T'Pol? Is it a medication necessary to treat your illness?" Gentle. Calm.

"This medication _is_ my illness - at least in part. It is a psychotropic toxin that is, at this moment, _destroying_ my synaptic pathways. It's best you maintain your distance; it will affect you if you come any nearer."

Now, her voice is as flat as any Vulcan's. But the emotions - oh, the _emotions_! She hates him for his calm and his gentleness, for being unobjectionable and undeserving of her hatred. Illogical in the extreme. But no less true.

"Why, T'Pol?"

There's something in him that reminds her of the Captain. In other circumstances, perhaps, he could be a friend. But not now. Not ever.

"Because I _need_ it! Because I want to _feel!_ Because I can feel _him_ , with the icefire in my veins. Because I am _addicted."_ He moves as though to step nearer, and she hisses, _"_ Come no closer; I'm not safe."

Koss stays where he is; though she herself warned him, T'Pol wishes he would dare come close enough that she could attack him, rend him. After a moment's consideration, he speaks.

"Can the condition be reversed?"

"No. Nor would I agree to the treatment if it could be." She can't live without the emotions; not anymore.

"That seems - illogical."

She stares at him. " _Fuck_ logic," she screams. There are times when English is a most concise language. If she can't have Trip, then she will have this. She will fill herself with it. She might kill herself with it. Then there will be no pain.

"It wasn't my intention to cause you distress, T'Pol, only to honor the terms of our Promising."

"Terms imposed on us when we were _children_. Terms that suit neither of us." Yes. She remembers. There was someone else in the link; Koss had called the other t'hy'la. He wants her only because they were Promised. Like her, his soul has already been given, and accepted. She feels the resonance of other fingers, a mind lurking like an arachnid in its web, then forcing hers open to take the lifeblood of her most cherished memory.

"Such a shame," Tolaris had said, when he couldn't break her. This is a far greater shame. How many marry as ordered, when they long for another?

"Whether they suit us personally is not the reason for pairbonding, as you know." T'Pol wants to scream in his face, shake him until he taps into his own primal nature.

Tolaris, again, as though he whispers in her ear. "Our primal nature, T'Pol, is not as dangerous as you think." But it had been. It is, now.

"I also suffer from Pa'Naar Syndrome." She throws the information at him as though it's an attack. "Yes, Koss- I've engaged in a _mind meld_ \- "

She wants him to be shocked, to lose that complacency and control. But he only nods. "I am aware of that, and the circumstances surrounding it. There are treatments - my family physicians are currently engaged in research."

"I want no _treatments_!"

"Pa'Naar Syndrome is fatal, T'Pol." He tips his head, and a faint shading of feeling makes its way into his voice. She is exultant, and enraged, at once. The paradox bursts from her in a raw scream.

"Then let it kill me, if the trellium doesn't do it first! I _want_ to die! That will release me from - from the _hell_ of living as the wife of a man I don't want! Let me die, sooner rather than later."

"There is your human friend. Doesn't he desire you?"

She moans with the memory of how deeply he desires her, and how impossible what Koss suggests is. "I won't speak of him to _you_!" Had she intended to inject again? How many times, now - four, five, more?

What matter?

"Hod your silence, if you wish. Know only that I have no objection to anything you wish to do with him -"

Her pheromones release so powerfully that she cries out, hips thrusting forth as her back arches in an involuntary mating display- not meant for this man, or _any_ man of this world. Meant for one ma, one _hu_ man, alone. "I can't imagine he would refuse you, T'Pol, if he could see you in this moment, flaming with your desire for him."

"You will permit it?" Her breath is a sharp pant; her hands move restlessly over the dress she still wears - why is she clothed? What logic is there in _that_? And why does she ask, as though he has some right to deny her?

"Permit it? I'm aware of your combat skills. I'm not competent to stop you. I'll take you safely to your mother's home, if that's your wish."

"Why?" She suspects a trap; her hands tear at the neck of the dress; she can't breathe in it anymore; she's bathed in sweat, in need.

"Because I fear for you, and myself, if you stay here, with your needs untended. You are my wife, and I can't abdicate my responsibility to see that others remain unharmed while you are altered."

"Trip..." It's only a whisper, like a tiny cry. He doesn't hear her; she can't feel him. She raises the device again. She needs to feel him.

Please, T'Pol, do not -"

Se doesn't listen. She _can't_. The hypo hisses, but it's empty ; she snarls and throw it at him, and he narrowly manages to catch it before it strikes him. She wants more, needs _more_ \- there is _more_ , at her mother's home.

That is where Trip is.

"Take me to him. Take me to him _now_. Now, now _now_...he is mine. Mine. _Mine!"_

"I'll take you. Come -"

The word has human connotations. Koss can't know them; T'Pol can't forget. She moans, her hand moving to her stavril, frantic, hungry, unstoppable. The man turns slightly away, but holds his focus on her face; he can' t rust he as she is. She gives herself to the seeking after orgasm - a human word, for something unnecessary for females in Vulcan reproduction.

But it won't come. _She_ can't come. Not here, not with him. She snarls again, longing for the primal release, the spiraling pleasures Trip awoke in her - only him, only him _, only him._ She moans her need. "Trip..."

"I will take you to him. But you must come- I don't dare touch you, now."

Calm. Still.

He is so calm, and now she is grateful. She needs too much, feels too much; she can't think. She trusts herself to this man who is her husband, who says he will take her to her lover, her mate.

She trusts in him, because she must. She must have trellium. More. She must have _Trip_.

"Please - help me!" She doesn't know what she's asking him for.

"I vow always to do that. It can't undo what's done. But I will see you to your mate; support you in any way a husband can."

"Hurry. Hurry. _H_ _urry_!"

It's dark when he opens the door - when had it become night?

"This way, T'Pol."

She follows where he leads. He opens the door to a spacious aircar, and she nearly throws herself inside. He sits in the cockpit; she hungers, and shudders with need.

Hazy time of feeling. She loses track of everything but feeling, of seeking him in her mind, then finding him - _"Trip!"_

"Pepperpot? Aww, hell...I don't want to dream about you. Hurts. Hurts so bad..."

"So much pain...so much need -"

"Oh, damn. You're high, n' I'm drunk. What the hell kind of dream will _this_ be?"

"Is it a dream, Trip? No - let it be real."

"Damn, I wish I could. Wish _we_ could. Bu you _married_ him, pepperpot."

"Nothing. Nothing. _Nothing_. It means nothing. Onlyyou. Only you. O _nlyyou_..."

"We have reached your destination, T'Pol. Do you need assistance?"

But she's clawing at the door. Prying it open. Falling out to land tangled on the ground. Rolling up. Running. Staggering. Falling. Tearing at the dress, shredding it. Leaving the bits scattered.

She's at the garden gate. She removes the obstacle, and keeps moving into the house -

And is stopped by the single candle, with its flame. It calls to her, as it did when she was a child. The flame, and the nectar. The trellium, and Trip.

She is drawn to the flame, to the power and the beauty. The scars of the first burning pulse with her need.

"Kroykah!"

The command means nothing. She didn't heed it as an infant She doesn't now. She thrusts paired fingers into the flame.

For the nectars, and the man who has Awakened her.

The pain is as she remembers. Beautiful, powerful.

Paired fingers join hers, twine with them. Minds and breath twine together, following their fingers. They share the beauty, the pain, the power. She arches and displays.

"Kroykah, daughter! Kroykah!"

It's beyond her to stop. Why should she, when he is her mate? When she is his? "T'hy'la!"

Trip groans and kisses her. He pulls her in. She is his. He is hers. This is theirs. Theirs tangle together, the flame forgotten. She presses him down. "Aww, hell. Let it be a dream, pepperpot. A sweet wild dream. Sexiest damned dream of my life." He whispers in her ear. She shivers into his cool breath.

"It's a dream, Trip." Is it? She doesn't know. She's willing to believe. To let _him_ believe. Anything, to have him. To be penetrated. Inseminated by her mate. To become one. "Only a dream..."

"This is no dream. Daughter, you have no right to use this man. Kroykah. Go to your husband. Bring your need to him."

"Aww, hell, pepperpot - you're _married_ , and not to me. You've got a husband -"

Husband? Was Trip not her mate? No one else could meet this need. Only him. Only her mate.

"Mine. Mine. M _ine!_ Now, now, _now_ -" She ground against him, tearing at his clothes, her own. Her nails raked flesh. Red blood, and green. Blending. Merging.

"Hope to hell it's a dream - can't stop, not now. Not when you're like this. Gotta be a dream,, cause - cause I can't stop. Don't want to -"

She presents herself. Her pheromones release, wrenching a cry from her. She opens to her mate. Body, mind, soul - she is his.

"Sorry, T'Les. Can't resist her. Not like _this_. She _needs_ me - and dammit, I need _her_ , too."

"You need me?"

"More than I need to breathe, pepperpot. Oh, damn...this is wrong. But so right."

"The cause is sufficient. Go in peace. Do what is needed. You won't be disturbed."

He lifts her, and she wraps her legs around him, desperate to feel him moving within her. She needs not only mating, but the climbing, soaring dance toward ecstasy. She needs to make love - with him. He carries her to her bed, and the door closes.

"A comfortable bed. A door that locks." She gives him the words he spoke, long ago, in that Suliban cell.

"Right - gotta lock the door."

They fall onto the bed, and then he's within her, stavril mated to stavrit, souls twining, dancing. She offers him her burned fingertips, as her other hand finds his face, his cherished rounded ear, his temple and the bioelectric pulses that are onlyhis, onlyhis, _onlyhis_...

He takes her fingers into his mouth, watching her until his panting breath catches. His eyes close. She can feel him nearing ejaculation. She's frantic, ready to come. He suckles her fingers, and they plunge together into oblivion, into oneness.

She shakes, after, still needing. He needs rest, but his hands travel her body. He stares into her eyes. "This _isn't_ a dream, T'Pol."

"I know, Trip." It matters to him, that she understand. She feels it.

"We can't do this again - we _shouldn't_. Sorry - I should've resisted. Still drunk. My judgment's shot."

"I'll go." She doesn't know how she'll leave.

But he clutches at her, holds her back. "No, _don't_. Not yet. How much, T'Pol?"

She rests her head on his chest, where she can here the slowing music of his human heart, feel his breath passing through his human lungs, breathe the scent of her human t'hy'la. "How much?"

Trip strokes her hair, tips her head up. He looksdeeply into her eyes, and says, softly, "Trellium. How much? Never seen you like this, since they brought you back from the _Seleya_. How much?"

"More, more, _more_ -" She has no answer to give him, only the need that must be filled.

"Where's yer scanner?" He is an engineer, even now. She shakes her head; she doesn't know; doesn't care. She quivers; she clings. His fingers shake as they trace her ear, the place where she injects...safe. She's safe with him. She can rest. He'll take care of her.

"You aren't keepin' score, anymore, pepperpot? 'N' I'm way the hell too drunk to know how much _I've_ had...we're in trouble, deep trouble, T'Pol- cause I'm not gonna say no, and dammit, I should - _you_ should - "

"I'll go. "She doesn't want to hurt him - or use him. She _love_ _s_ him. She starts to rise, not knowing how she manages. Is this love, then - denying them both, so her beloved won't be hurt more than he has been?

She is moving. She doesn't know where she'll go. Not back to Koss. No. He's not safer, where she is. Somewhere. She'll go somewhere.

The sobbing breaks from her. She tries to hold it, but can't. She's helpless. She needs him - and he catches hold of her hands, drawing her back onto the bed, into hos embrace. Trip kisses away her tears, moves over her, and his stavrit is erect, ready. She moans, and arches, but tries to pull away, to spare him the pain she brings.

But he kissed her, then whispered, "Please stay. It's wrong; I know it. Stay anyway...stay with me, pepperpot, let me make love with you, hold you till you come down, till you can face this."

And then he moves inside her, and there is only what they share together.


	4. The Monstrous More

_**Author's Notes:**_

 _ **Disclaimers and Story Details in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices".**_

 _ **This story contains strong sexual references, and drug and alcohol use. It earns its M rating, and is NSFW.**_

 _ **T'Pol and Trip have been consumed by the need to be together, but now Trip is realizing that there's something monstrous in T'Pol's never-ending need for more. Will he be devoured by the raw need that's swallowed her whole?**_

 **The Monstrous More**

"More, more, _more_ _!_ "

He never would have guessed she had a monster living inside her. Sure, he'd seen her passions, knew she could lose that famous Vulcan control. He knew it was a hell of a lot more likely to happen when they were alone together.

But this monster made her nothing but endless, ravenous hungers.

"More, more, _more_."

"Pepperpot, I can't...spirit's willing, but the human's weak - "

She stared into his eyes, and her pupils had swallowed up all the hazel. Maybe it was because he was really drunk, and everything was blurry. Tricky knowing where he ended and she started. Like she was in his skin, and he in hers...

"More, more, _more!_ " She moved frantically, but it was no use. She'd plumb tuckered him out, or pulled the Tucker right out of him.

"Damn – way too drunk, if I'm making jokes about my own name – _yow!_ " Her grab was fierce. "Kroykah!" he yelped, and either the sound or the word startled her into letting go.

The monster inside her didn't understand. It reveled in pain. Maybe natural, maybe the damned fist-sized rock's worth of trellium she'd pumped into herself – and that was just what he could remember through the booze haze.

Was trellium-D the monster, or was it something else?

Didn't matter. She was shaking. Damn. Where was her limit, anyhow? Could the monster ever get enough? He pulled her up close, stroking her back.

"More, more, _more_?" she whimpered, staring at him, her eyes filling up. It did him in, that she still needed him so much she cried. Or was that the monster, too?

"Sorry, pepperpot. Can't, now. Need to sleep..." So did she, but the monster wouldn't let her.

"Drink more?" Was she was breaking out of her monster's more, more, more? Or just trying to get him drunk enough to go again?

"More neuropressure?" He was going to get sick again if he drank any more now.

"Mate more?"

"After sleep." He kissed her; could still do that, anyway. "I promise."

More, more, _more_. Her heart beat it out swift and strong against his belly. Her fingers moved to his face; two were burned, like his, from when they'd thrust them into the flame. Trip was a little scared. More than a little. Her plasma arc got stronger every time. Every time, he felt more, more, _more_ of her. More of her. More of the monster inside, taking her over.

Would it possess him, too? What would happen, if it did?

What would happen, if he didn't let it get any further...?

Too tired now...both so tired – even the monster must have been, because her head settled on his chest, over his heart...

"So slow...so slow...so...slow..." she murmured, hot breath tickling his chest, and she smelled like walking through Grandma Tucker's orange grove on a spring afternoon...

 _They're sitting at the Cap'n's table, in the grove. Sandalwood candles are burning, blending with citrus. Strong with minerals...oh, damn. "On Vulcan, we mate only once every seven years." So prim and superior. A self-righteous pain in the ass._

 _And she was lying. Cause this was sure as hell Vulcan, and they'd 'mated' seven times in the last seven_ hours. _Maybe more. "More, more,_ more _."_

 _She's sitting on a branch, a plum slice poised at her lips. She's just told Phlox, and he's asked her why. Why would she do something so dangerous? She tips the fruit – not a plum anymore – to her lips. She knows it will change her forever, in ways she can't predict._

 _"I wanted more." She opens her mouth, gulps greedily, can't hold it all. Sticky nectars run down her chin, and he licks and kisses them away, while she becomes something new._

" _I wanted more. More, more,_ more _." So simple, her reason - But it wasn't simple. It was all through her, this dangerous need for more. Not want. Need._

 _The flame, when she was a baby. The nectars, on the Forge, beneath T'Khut at full, in a crevice in the obsidian cliffs. She waited, trembling, until the ripened fruit fell into her hand, her scarred fingers cradling it._

 _Need drove her. Need was the monster inside her. The need to know more. More, more,_ more _...forever, more, more,_ more _._

 _Her mind was full of it, like a mantra. She was open and trembling here, too...poised to give him more, more,_ more _of herself – all of herself? To let him share the nectars, and the flame. No. More._

 _More, more,_ more.

 _He was the nectar, and the flame. She gave herself to him, as she had to them...she was changed by him, and she wanted more._

 _Moremoremore._

 _If he let her have all she wanted, her monster would gobble him up. What would happen to Trip Tucker? He could feel it, rising, preparing to swallow him whole, the way it had her..._

He jolted awake. She was finally sleeping -deeply. He hadn't woken her with his jerking away from the monster inside her...

"More, more, _more_."...monstrous, her need for more – it was there; he could here it in her breath...

It had swallowed her whole, and he was next...

No.

Not letting that happen!

Trip wriggled out from under, and stared at her sprawled across the bed. The marks on her body shocked him – she was bruised, scratched, abraded. What the hell had they been doing, these last who the hell knew how many days – she was _married_ , and not to him, but they'd acted like it was _their_ honeymoon -

Where the hell was Koss, anyway? Her rightful, _Vulcan_ husband?

Falling more than walking, he got to the door. He wanted to turn and look at her one last time– but he didn't dare. To see her asleep in candlelight, to see the marks of their lovemaking on her copper skin – no, that way lie more, more, _more_ madness...

Trip stumbled naked out of the room, chased by her relentless mind, and its endless plea, command, desire...which he felt, still, in the beat of his human heart.

"More, more, _more._..."


	5. Seleya

**Seleya**

"Mother, I'm bereft."

Those were the last words she'd said, before she come here. Since, she hadn't spoken. There was no need, at Seleya, and T'Pol could neither think of any words to say, nor rouse herself to interact with others.

And she was still bereft.

She had lost, if not everything, then certainly all that truly held value to her.

She had lost Trip. She'd awakened into the aftereffects of trellium overdose – how many doses, and for how long? - to a bed empty of her lover, her t'hy'la. He'd promised that they would mate again – and again and again, she had hoped – after they slept...but he was gone.

What had she done to him, to make him leave?

But she didn't need to ask. Her mother, as ever, had been succint and thorough. T'Pol had no reason to doubt T'Les. Even if she had, Koss had been waiting with her when T'Pol staggered naked into the living area, following Trip's scent and her own endless need for him.

She had little memory of the events, other than those that felt like dream, or nightmare. Even now, nearly a week later, she could feel the lingering effects of the neurotoxin, feel her emotions surging within her, relentless and uncontrolled, although she was past the compulsion to act upon them. She had certainly further damaged her synaptic pathways...

But that meant little. Life meant nothing. She had lost Trip. She had coerced him to sexual activity. Koss had brought her to her t'hy'la – there'd been grave danger for him, in being so near her. He had sanctioned what occurred, likely because there was no logical alternative. Her need for Trip had consumed her, leaving no space for anything else. Left alone with the man who was now her husband, she likely would have killed him.

But these were things Trip couldn't know. Would they make a difference to him, if he did? Human marriages were different. There was less emphasis on the societal foundations of pairbonding, and his species didn't have the immutable need of pon farr's madness and the instability it caused.

For him, marriage was a thing of emotions and sexual fidelity.

The only emotions T'Pol felt for Koss were aversion and helplessness. She wished him no ill, now, but she couldn't imagine returning to his home to live, or even visit. She couldn't pass the time of mating with him, bear his child, be his wife.

And yet she _was_ his wife, by her own choice.

She stared up at the stars, in the direction that led to Earth, and to the only man she had ever wanted, until the tears made all the lights blend into one blur that pulsed in time with her pain.

Bereft, T'Pol stood upon the Forge, and cried, her tears falling upon her native sands.


	6. Unsent Letter 1

_**A** **uthor's Notes:**_

 _ **This is the first of several extrapolated "missing scene" epistolary chapters, imagining possible unsent correspondence in the wake of the events detailed in "Home"., and earlier chapters in this story. Major spoilers for "Home"; spoilers for "Damage". **_

**Unsent Letter #1**

T'Pol -

I can't believe that you used me that way! Bad enough that you went ahead and _married_ a man we both know you don't love - I can kinda understand that; you did it for your mom, and I can respect that, even if -

Awww hell -even if I _hate_ it more than I can think of words for -

But what you did - you _seduced_ me when I was too drunk to know what the hell I was doing - thought it was all some beautiful dream, until I woke up and found out it was all a nightmare...

I _love_ you woman, you know that?! _Love you_ -

And, damn, I _hate_ you right now.

Hate you for taking advantage of me, for dragging me back into your bed, into _you_ -

What the hell was that all _abou_ t, anyway? You used me to - to commit _adultery_ , T'Pol. Told you and told you - I'm a _gentleman_ , or I'm _supposed_ to be, anyway.

Gentlemen on Earth _don't_ jump into bed with women who just married someone else, even if it isn't exactly a love match. You made me an _adulterer_ , pepper- no, _not_ callin' you that, not anymore - T'Pol - you took something from me that I can never ever get back. You took my integrity, and yours - I can't see you the same way, now, and I hate you for that.

Oh, damn - I hate you, and I love you, and I don't know what the _hell_ I'm supposed to do with that, how the hell I'm gonna be able to _work_ with you after this -

 _Don't_ come back. Call the Cap'n, have him ship your damned things to you. Stay the hell on your _own_ world - off my ship, and outta my life -

Hope you have exactly as soulless and emotionless a life as you deserve -

No, I don't. I want you to be happy. I want you to have more than you ever dreamed of. Passels of little pointy-eared Vulcan babies, if you want them - do you? You didn't want babies with _me_ \- was my DNA not good enough for you? I'll damned well bet _his_ is, though...

You know what? The _hell_ with you. The hell with you and your damned cryptic ways, your fucking _logic_ , your goddamned _control_ \- ha, what a laugh _that_ is - when you - you broke my heart and stomped all over it, T'Pol, and then you leave me the damned booze, knowing what I'd do with it, and you got good and high, didn't you, and came and - damned near _raped_ me -

The hell with _you_ , T'Pol. If I never see your damned beautiful face again, it'll be _way_ too soon for me!

Awww, hell, I can't send this - not to you. Not knowing your expression won't even change when you hear it - forget the whole damned thing - I'm just done with it, and you...computer, delete it."


	7. Takin' a Swan Dive

_**A** **uthor's Notes:**_

 _ **Disclaimer/story notes in Chapter One.**_

 _ **This is the first of several extrapolated "missing scene" epistolary chapters, imagining possible unsent correspondence in the wake of the events detailed in "Home", and earlier chapters in this story. Major spoilers for "Home"; spoilers for "Damage".**_

 _ **Rated T for language, for sexual suggestiveness, and alcohol and drug abuse.**_

 _ **Takin' a Swan Dive**_

It took three tries, and three misses, before Trip was able to get the idea that he was way too drunk to be messing with the damned PADD. Which probably meant he was also way the hell too drunk to be sitting in the crotch of a mangrove tree, in the middle of what was left of the Everglades after Degra's pilot had done his duty.

"Nother alien, nother wound...think I woulda learned," he muttered, then reached for the cooler he'd hung on a conveniently angled and broken limb. Maybe he was already way too drunk for that to be anything like a good idea – but he didn't give a damn, not now. Maybe he'd never be sober again.

It was good to be numb. Cept that, even numb, he could still feel the pain. He was gouged like the Glades, like Florida, like Earth -

Like his soul.

Why the hell did he feel this way? Damned alien woman hadn't given him any reason at all to feel that way. Hell, she'd come right out and said that she was conductin' an "exploration of human sexuality." Shoulda taken her serious, never let her back into his quarters or his pants, or, if he did, shoulda used her the way she had him. Never shoulda fallen in love with her – and never ever ever shoulda done what he did with her after she went and married that damned Koss fella.

She said she did that for her mother – but was that really the truth of it? Or had she just gotten her Vulcan jollies with an inferior but gullible human specimen, and now she could have her once every seven years, never needin' to deal with any of his emotions – and she didn't have any of her own.

No, that wasn't right. There was the trellium, racing through her, makin' her into something that she wouldn't have been, if she wasn't with them, if she'd gone the hell home before the Expanse like she shoulda. Instead, she got addicted -

Is it fair to blame her for that?

"The hell with fair!" It was a raw scream. "Ain't none of this fair!" Dim memory of Mom reminding him that "ain't" isn't a word, but he didn't care about that now. It was a little stab back at her – not Mom, but the woman who wouldn't even know what "ain't" meant. He screamed the word out across the swamp, joining his voice to the sound of night birds, frogs, and the ever-present buzz of mosquitoes that probably wouldn't like her green blood -

The PADD slipped from his hand, and his clumsy grab missed, nearly propelling him after it as it bounced off branches, then splashed into the dark shallow water.

"Took a swan dive, didja?" He cackled. He'd held onto the bottle of tequila, anyway, and, once he got his laughter under control, he took as deep a swig as he could hold – more than he could hold, really, because most of it came back up only a few minutes later. He replaced it more slowly, this time, sipping and brooding as he stared down at that water.

Gators in that water. Bacteria. Copperheads, maybe.

What would it feel like, to be in a gator's jaws as he started his death roll? To get an infected cut that spread, and did him in? A copperhead's fangs sunk into him, pump' virile poisons into his blood – like trellium in hers?

Trip stared down into the water, thinking that, instead of poisonin' himself in slow motion, maybe he ought to be takin' a swan dive of his own.


	8. Unsent Letter 2

_**A** **uthor's Notes:**_

 _ **Disclaimer/story notes in Chapter One.**_

 _ **This is the second of several extrapolated "missing scene" epistolary chapters, imagining possible unsent correspondence in the wake of the events detailed in "Home", and earlier chapters in this story. Major spoilers for "Home".**_

 _ **Rated T for language, for sexual suggestiveness.**_

 _ **Unsent Letter #2**_

Trip -

I - I don't know how to begin this letter. As you know, apologies are a human convention, and not a Vulcan one. Perhaps, if I were human, I would be better able to make an apology that could in some way compensate for - for the harm I've caused you. Harm I know I've inflicted upon you, but which I don't fully understand.

Your emotions - they are alien to me.

And they aren't. Perhaps it's a gift, and, at the same time, a curse, that I've lived among your people, worked alongside you, learned something more of you than what my people normally believe to be true.

Most Vulcans can remain unaware of the depth and complexity of human relationships. I can't, not anymore.

Although it's illogical, I feel your pain. In the way you left, and in your silence.

I've hurt you, in ways I don't fully understand, any more than I understand my own motivations in returning to my mother's house and engaging in sexual relations with you, when I know that your understanding of what makes a marriage differs strongly from the contract I entered into with Koss.

And, whether you can understand it or not, it _is_ a contract, entered into for reasons that are alien to you, but which are integral to Vulcan society.

In my own defense, I can say only that I was required to honor my commitment to my people. However, I needed you, and, in Vulcan culture, the two aren't mutually exclusive, as they are for you.

I _need_ you, Trip.

It's not logical.

That makes it no less true.

I need you. My life, without you, is - empty. Hollow. Desolate. Bereft.

These are emotions that have no translation in my language. Vulcans aren't meant to define and label our emotions; we're meant to suppress them, when we can't repress them. We're meant to separate emotion from thought and action, and behave logically.

I didn't do this, as regards my feelings for you. I can't.

I don't know how. What I - what I _feel_ for you, Trip - I have no words by which to define the emotions, and I won't use human words I don't fully comprehend the implications of - but these emotions are more powerful than I am.

Perhaps I should remain here, but - but I know now that I will not.

I _can't._

I _need_ you.

I _want_ you.

There is a human expression that once seemed more illogical and inaccurate than most. I didn't understand it then - but I believe I do, now.

My heart is broken. You entered my life, Awakened me, made me something other than what I might have been - something that isn't human, but is also no longer wholly Vulcan.

You've made me _feel,_ and now I can't stop.

But my emotions aren't the purpose of this missive.

I'm not certain what _is_.

I don't know how to apologize to you, Trip. I can't see anything I can say or do which will offer you any healing whatsoever.

I suspect this letter has been more for me, than for you - and it isn't serving to clarify or purge my emotional chaos as regards you -


	9. A Vulcan Life A Vulcan Wife

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One: Promises and Choices._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene story which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode** **,** **"Fusion"** **;** **"** **Damage".** **It explores the aftereffects of T'Pol's marriage and Trip's subsequent departure from Vulcan.**_

 _ **This** **chapter** **is rated M** **for sexual** **themes** **.**_

 **A Vulcan Life, A Vulcan Wife**

There was no point in recording a message. There was nothing she could do to make this situation more tenable for Trip.

Or, though there was no logic in it, for herself, either.

She was married to Koss.

"I am a Vulcan wife." She said the words aloud, in the language of the only man with whom she had shared sexual relations. The man whose emotions had flooded her awareness, and shown her that there was more than the simple mechanics of mating.

"A Vulcan wife doesn't make love; making love isn't logical." She knew this to be true; knew it because her initial explorations had led to urges only for the mating act; the penetration and insemination that might have resulted in a child, if she were ready, and if she and Trip had been able to conceive without medical intervention.

It was he who had told her, in no uncertain terms, that there was a reason for the size of the _Kama Sutra_ , for the seemingly illogical diversity and pervasive nature of human sexuality.

It was he who had Awakened her – and he who Awakened her body and her soul to the pleasures of erotic touch, to the slip of fingers over her hip, to lips tangling with her own, teeth nibbling at the tip of her ear, of his tongue -

She moaned softly – and the sound came back from the cliffs and abysses of her homeworld, strangely twisted by the spaces and obstacles and the thin hot air of zenith.

"Maybe I oughta be takin' a swan dive of my own."

The thought came to her as though he was standing here beside her on the stone bridge. It was so clear that T'Pol turned, something within her leaping toward -

Nothing. Only the the empty expanse of desert, open air, rock formations.

She was still alone. Still desolate.

Still bereft.

And, sixteen light-years away from a Vulcan life, a Vulcan wife, so was her Chosen.

"Trip is my mate! Koss is my husband; he will _never_ be my mate!" What impulse led her to scream, to close her fists so tightly that her nails pierced the skin of her palms?

Sudden vertigo dropped her, belly down, on the thin span of the rock bridge, shaking. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Trip was in danger.

She shouldn't be able to feel him, not when they weren't touching, and hadn't touched.

But that thought was wiped away by the danger to her mate. She clutched arms and legs around the rock, couldn't release the wish that it was him, even in this moment. Following instinct she didn't understand, T'Pol flung her mind out across the distance, out into the stars, hunting a single silken thread that led to her mate, her Chosen, her human, her Trip.

Staring down into danger, hiding from the pain that wanted to consume him.

Pain she had caused him, with her Vulcan life, with her becoming a Vulcan wife.

"Gators in that water. Bacteria. Copperheads, maybe." She didn't understand the nature of the words, but she knew the danger, and the pain, intimately.

Her fault that he hurt so badly he would fling himself into the dark shallow water that held death.

He must not. He'd done nothing to deserve such a death – or any death.

But _she_ had.

 _A copperhead's fangs sunk into him, pump_ _in_ _' virile poisons into his blood – like trellium in hers?_

She must not allow this. What loss, this Vulcan life, as a Vulcan wife? What use had she for either?

T'Pol stared down the two point six three kilometers to the jagged cliffs below, and understanding came, in Trip's voice, bringing forth her own echoing response.

"Maybe I oughta be takin' a swan dive of my own."

If she let go, simply rolled to one side or the other, there would be no further pain for either of them.


	10. Unsent Letter 3

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **T'Les dictates a letter to her only child, T'Pol, in which she expresses regret for urging T'Pol to honor her arranged marriage to Koss, and makes some revelations. Unfortunately, she never sends the letter.**_

My T'Pol -

Daughter, I've meditated on this communication, and still I don't know how to begin, or how to assist you as you heal. I'm uncertain whether healing is something you are capable of, with the damage you've sustained.

I encouraged you to make choices I believed to be logical and beneficial for your future and the continuation of your genetic attributes. However, I lacked certain apparently crucial information, and it's now evident that my advice wasn't best suited to your circumstances. The logic I employed didn't account for the specific realities of your life, both those realities of which I was unaware, and those which I illogically wished to alter.

I watched you with your human lover, daughter. Yes, I know that you were intimately and romantically linked with Commander Tucker, prior to the incident following your marriage to Koss. Perhaps you're unaware, but the connection between you was palpable. When you brought your lover here, to my home, I considered it a dishonor. That was an illogical and prejudicial determination. He is the first human I've met, and he has shown me that there is much I assumed about his species that is not as I had thought it to be. When I suggested to this human, this _man_ , that he confess his love for you, he placed your comfort above his own emotions. He chose to sacrifice what you might have created together, rather than cause you any more pain and confusion.

Perhaps it will surprise you that I speak of love. Such things aren't relevant in Vulcan marriages. Your deep affection for this human male was alarming, and your new volatility considerably more so. That's why I urged you to Koss. He is known as a calm man, even among our people, and I hoped, perhaps illogically, that a union with him would assist you in regaining your own emotional equilibrium.

I believe now that I was wrong. You've changed, T'Pol, in many ways. Perhaps it's impossible, now, for you to be as you were. You belong not only to Vulcan, but to the humans with whom you've made your life, and who have accepted you when your duty with them damaged you.

Humans are clearly more open and accepting than our species. This man honors you in every choice he makes. Against this, what can a Vulcan marriage offer you? Children? Perhaps, I was wrong about that, as well. If you had children with Commander Tucker, they would have two parents to care for them and tend their needs. Would it matter, if others didn't understand? If I didn't?

Perhaps it's too late- Commander Tucker seems to view marriage, as all things, far more emotionally than we do. Perhaps that is at the root of human nature. I know that he's deeply troubled, daughter, as you are. He's concerned for your welfare. He didn't betray your confidence, despite abundant evidence that you were deeply altered when Koss returned you to my home and your Chosen mate. He did, however, demand most passionately that I 'take good care' of you.

I've failed in doing so. There are things I haven't shared with you. Perhaps, if I had, you would have chosen differently, rather than putting my career ahead of your needs and desires, or your Chosen's. I thought to give you security against the questionable and controversial changes that contributed to my dismissal from the Academy, and I allowed you to believe that you were the sole cause of my recent difficulties. That was a grave error in judgment. Although I didn't exaggerate the degree to which your actions at P'Jem have incurred a desire to see you punished, whether justly or otherwise, it was my own actions that led to my dismissal.

There is far more to this situation than you know, and more than I will tell you now. You're ill, and need time and space to recover, if you are able. I suspect there will soon come a time when matters are revealed with clarity. I will explain my position and actions to you, at that time.

Perhaps, if you return to _Enterprise_ , you'll find a path that is beneficial for you, and also for Commander Tucker. I don't believe you can find peace and affection with Koss; I suspect that one or both of you will move to dissolve the marriage before pon farr. If that is your choice, my T'Pol, I will support you. Despite my reservations regarding the challenges you will face in making your life with a human, I will support you in that, as well, if you wish it.

While it isn't possible to undo the erroneous choices I've made, I won't compound them by insisting you adhere to a marriage contract that can't meet your specific needs.

This communication is ill-advised. I'll allow you the space and freedom I didn't, while you were with me. I know you've gone to Mount Seleya. It is my hope that you will find some measure of peace there, and perhaps a way forward that will correct some of the damage done by this marriage, and whatever injury you've sustained during your service aboard _Enterprise_. I'll save this letter to give to you at a time when you are more prepared to receive it.

May you find peace and prosperity, daughter.


	11. Xenophobia Wasn't Logical

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **T'Les struggles to accept the errors of her own xenophobic judgments, and their consequences for her daughter and her human bondmate.**_

 **Xenophobia Wasn't Logical**

T'Les saved the correspondence, then sat before her candle. The events of the last week had left her too agitated. The lingering odors of the frenzied couplings reminded her of the Burning times with her husband, and made meditation impossible. Perhaps she should neutralize the mating-scent and restore T'Pol's room to order, but she resisted the thought. She had instigated the chaos with her own insistence that her daughter fulfill a familial obligation that interfered with her own nature. What right had she to erase any evidence of the results of her own actions and assumptions?

T'Les watched her flame, and remembered.

T'Pol was conceived in flame. Perhaps that was why she was so drawn to it as an infant. She had moved so swiftly, thrusting her small paired fingers into the flame as though she wished to share intimacies with it. She'd been so silent and still, only the odor of her her burning flesh had alerted T'Les to open her eyes and see what the baby had done.

T'Pol had shrieked out her rage when T'Les pulled her away, and had struggled fiercely to reclaim that which could destroy her.

As the flame had compelled her in infancy, the alien man had compelled her as a woman. T'Les felt the pull between them from the first moment; when they thrust their fingers together into the flame, she knew.

They were bound.

Commander Tucker hadn't been destructive. It was her own assumptions, her own illogical xenophobia, that had fractured her only child's katra.

"I am bereft, Mother." Those were the last words T'Pol had spoken. T'Les had searched for a meaning for the Terran word. It had no Vulcan equivalent. When she had read enough to have some understanding, it was already too late. T'Pol was gone, the marriage was formalized, and her nascent bond with Commander Tucker was in danger of collapsing.

Could T'Pol survive, if it did? Would she choose death, rather than healing?

When Solnat had died, T'Les had wanted to die, as well. She had told Commander Tucker that they had shared a deep connection. She hadn't told him about the bond; she hadn't thought then that a human could understand either the concept or the reality.

Xenophobia wasn't logical. Perhaps a human couldn't understand, but that didn't mean that no human could be bound.

T'Les opened her eyes, considering the flame, and the nature of her only child. When she'd first sensed T'Pol nearing, through the maternal bond, she'd felt the strangeness of her daughter's katra, that there was something within her daughter that wasn't as it had been. There was something deeply disturbed within her, something that suggested trauma and an imperfect healing that was as yet far from complete. She had waited within, at the window, as her daughter approached – in the company of a human male.

The simple fact that she would bring a human male here was a breach of typical protocol. When T'Les observed T'Pol's manner of dress, which seemed calculated to enhance her secondary sexual characteristics, and the way her body oriented to the human's, the way she folded her hands behind her when it was clear she longed to touch him, she'd ascribed the imbalance to the Starfleet officer. In some manner, he had Awakened her daughter, and made of her something that was other than Vulcan.

When T'Les stepped outside, the scent of her daughter's consummated arousal was affront and dishonor. T'Pol was still too young, by nearly a decade, for pon farr, and yet she was clearly intimate with this human. It wasn't forbidden for an unmarried person to become sexually active with someone other than their Promised, but it was rare, and always a matter of highest discretion.

Nor did Vulcans mate with more primitive species.

Logic had led her to contact Koss when she received the message that T'Pol was returning home; her daughter had said nothing of bringing a guest. Quite likely, she had known that T'Les would refuse hospitality to any human who was not already present, and so had chosen to avoid that possibility.

When she left Koss' letter of intention lying on the table, declaring that she had nothing to say to her Promised as though the matter would or could be so simply ended, T'Les had attributed that to the human's influence, as well. T'Pol's control was significantly compromised where the human was concerned, and it was equally obvious that the man desired her. T'Les had made no reference to it; she knew the nature of the woman who had, as an infant, touched the flame, and protested her separation from it. Better that T'Pol be convinced to formalize the union with Koss, and gain the stability of a Vulcan mate who would, in time, replace the lesser human. Suggesting that she release the human would only intensify her determination to remain with him.

She saw a human, and made the assumption that he was the cause of the difficulty. She didn't consider that there might be other causes for T'Pol's behavior. She saw a human, and placed the blame upon him and his species.

Xenophobia wasn't logical. Nor had she been, as concerned T'Pol and her colleague, whom she'd heard her daughter address both as Trip, and, far more concerningly, t'hy'la. Perhaps it was that which had decided her that the marriage must be made, before whatever T'Pol and Commander Tucker had shared could go further.

T'Les rose to wander the confines of her home, from the heavy gate broken in T'Pol's instinctive need to reach her bondmate, through the sand garden where she had first seen the human, and where the Promising had been fulfilled, and two lives had been radically and suddenly shifted.

She had interfered where she wasn't wanted or needed, and it was her daughter and the man to whom she was bound who had suffered the pain of her intrusion.

T'Les returned to the house, where the scattered pieces of Koss' letter remained on the floor in the main living area, evidence of T'Pol's rejection of her husband. In the kitchen, all of her appliances now functioned as they were meant to, because a human engineer had chosen to assist her when he learned she was having difficulty. It was where he had admitted openly to his relationship with her daughter. It was in this kitchen that she'd seen T'Pol display for her mate, as they prepared the morning meal, and seen the way the human wrapped arms around her, brought his lips to hers as T'Pol lifted to her toes, the gesture intimate and alien at once.

"Better wait till we can be alone, pepperpot," the human had whispered. "I get the idea that your mama isn't exactly a fan of me _or_ my species, and us getting' physical on her kitchen counter isn't going to help my case."

"Please, please, please."

"Oh, you wanton woman." His paired fingers traced her ear; and she made a small primal sound and turned into the touch. "You're damned hard to resist, but I promise I'll make it up to you."

"When? And how?"

"As soon as humanly possible, and you name it."

"Your terms are acceptable." T'Pol had broken away then, and regained some degree of control, but the tension had remained with her. T'Les had seen it, and her desires, coming forth in the way she defended a career with Starfleet, in the way she'd eaten with her hands, an unseemly and sensual act she appeared not to be aware of. Again, she'd assumed that the human was at the root of this impropriety, but she had been wrong. Commander Tucker had been more respectful than T'Pol, carefully touching no food with his hands.

She had seen a human, assumed him incapable of restraint, despite the mounting evidence that her daughter was somehow altered, and that it was the man who offered a stabilizing influence on her.

Because of her own xenophobic reaction to his species, T'Les had orchestrated contact with Koss, made formalizing the Promising the only acceptable alternative. In so doing, she had caused a far greater imbalance, and prevented the human from assisting T'Pol to find equilibrium.

It was here, to the kitchen, that Commander Tucker had staggered unclothed from three days in T'Pol's bed, his strange red blood a testament to the price of loving a Vulcan who had lost all semblance of restraint, and whose bond has been damaged. He'd begged to be taken away, "because her damned "more, more, _more_ should be for someone else, not me, and when she comes outta this, she's gonna regret it and dammit, I promised her I'd take care of her if she ever – well, can't talk about _that_ , but I gotta go before she pulls me in again, and damn, I'm so sorry to do this in your house, T'Les. My momma thought she raised a gentleman, but – listen, take good care of her. _Please._ She needs you – she needs _someone_. Needs her _husband_ , and I'm _not_ him. Wish to hell I was, that I could go back in there and be whatever she needs me to be, as long as she needs it, that I could let her more, more, more devour me, hold her when she cries – she has night terrors, sometimes, you know what those are? She screams in her sleep; seeing those nightmares again. Only thing that helps is neuropressure and music – oh, hell, I'm blathering like a damned fool, and I'm _naked_!"

The words had come in such rapid succession that they seemed almost to merge, and they were distorted by human tears, and strange breaks in the rhythm of his voice. He seemed most troubled by his nudity, although T'Les saw no logic in that, since it had been quite clear that they had been mating, as though T'Pol truly did Burn for him.

T'Les watched him stumble into the guest room, and the door closed perhaps more forcefully than he intended. She was overwhelmed both by the sheer number of words and the apparent randomness of their content. Only now, as she stared into the guest room, remembering the intensity of emotion that overflowed his human eyes, did T'Les find the common thread that bound Commander Tucker' seemingly disparate thoughts together.

Despite the damage her daughter had caused him, he wanted to protect her, care for her.

Her xenophobia had resulted in disaster. She had considered the matter logically, but mating bonds were not a matter of logic. Her logic hadn't allowed for such a possibility; she hadn't believed that a human was capable of the telerotic connection required for the formation of a bond.

She had been wrong.

Koss had willingly brought T'Pol to her Chosen, and must have known what she intended. Her pheromone levels betrayed her, announcing her need to mate. T'Les knew enough of Koss to be certain that he understood the telerotic nature of what T'Pol and Commander Tucker shared. That he had brought his wife to her lover granted both the permission to do what twas needful. T'Pol's husband sanctioned their activities, and would likely propose an amendment to their marriage contract which would accommodate this newly revealed connection, if T'Pol recovered enough to honor their agreement.

But the human seemed to feel that he had wronged T'Pol, wronged Koss. That suggested that he didn't understand the nature of his connection to T'Pol. Did she know what she had created? Was she even aware of the possibility?

Many marriages never moved beyond the necessary functions: providing a sexual partner for pon farr, and ta stable base for the foundation of a family. Often, those in such arrangements doubted the mating bond existed. Those not yet telerotically Awakened often considered it a myth, a piece of Surak's lore that couldn't be proven or quantified.

Those who shared it knew it couldn't be quantified. No proof was sufficient, or needed. A bond must be felt, and lived. Any effort to define or describe it failed. There was no logic in attempting to do so; bonds weren't necessary for a successful marriage, nor were they something that could be consciously created. In a Vulcan marriage, the bond would grow along with the young couple, or it wouldn't; if it existed, there was no need to explain what both felt.

Could it be so with a human partner?

T'Pol was clearly vulnerable and poorly prepared for the reality of this unprecedented bond, even without the added complications of a Vulcan marriage that now overlaid it. Under the circumstances, her seemingly unbalanced and irrational behavior was a logical and involuntary response to the threat to her bond.

Perhaps there was some benefit in her human bondmate. He had conducted himself with far more control than T'Pol was apparently capable of, where he was concerned. He had regained enough rationality to be affected by what he perceived as an immoral act that he'd committed. That suggested he didn't know about the bond, or didn't wholly understand its nature, or that of Vulcan marriages.

If T'Pol hadn't told him, it was possible that she also didn't comprehend what had happened. Had she intended to marry Commander Tucker? Were they here as a preparation for formalizing their bond? Even if neither of them knew they were bonded mates, they would be affected by their connection, as they had been after T'Pol's marriage to Koss. It was logical to assume that they would share a desire for permanence.

Though perhaps it wasn't logical, T'Les considered T'Pol's swift and powerful emotions the outward representation of all her parents' bond had encompassed in the moment of her fiery conception. She wouldn't admit to pride, except to he to whom she had need to admit nothing. Certainly, she would speak nothing of such an emotion to her daughter. But T'Les felt pride in the force of what T'Pol felt, and the manner in which she dared. As she had touched the flame, and fought to remain with it, so had she listened with fascination to the accounts of T'Les' first foremother, T'Mir, who had been to Terra. So had she walked upon other worlds, and bonded with a human.

T'Les realized she'd been standing in this doorway without purpose. She ought to tend to this room, even if she wouldn't breach the sanctity of T'Pol's, which, for all intents, was her marriage chamber. But some impulse she didn't understand caused her to remain outside the chamber where her daughter's mate had slept.

Commander Tucker had come out of the guest room only moments after he entered, with his bag's strap hung over his shoulder. His vividly colored clothing was wrinkled, mismatched, and appeared to be improperly or incompletely fastened, and his hair was significantly disarranged. He appeared to be aware of none of it as he placed something small on the table where Koss' letter still lay.

"This should fit your computer interface just fine. If she – well, if she hears this – sometimes, it helps her calm down so she can sleep a little. Please, T'Les – she's been through hell, and a helluva lot more than that, this last year or so. I can't tell you anything specific. But – what she did, she couldn't help. Please don't hold it against her. I should have done something to stop her. Shouldn't have gotten too drunk to even consider telling her no. Should've remembered I was a gentleman and a guest in your home, even if not a very welcome one, from your point of view. Shoulda kept my hands – and the rest of me – outta her box of pebbles. Wish to hell I had – but it was too late for _that_ a long time ago. If wishes were horses, as my Grandma Tucker used to say – well, I'd have a pretty damned huge herd by now. Please just – just take good care of her. Be gentle, if she'll let you – like she's a baby who needs tending. Like when she stuck her fingers in the fire the first time, and you rocked her, and sang to her, and put the candle far enough away so she wouldn't get hurt again."

Before T'Les could consider what to say, the engineer was gone. She considered following him, to ask him to wait until T'Pol woke, so that perhaps she could assist them in navigating their bond, and healing the injuries caused by the marriage to Koss. But he had been in pain, and there was nothing she could say to him, if T'Pol had not spoken on it.

Ten hours after he left, T'Les was woken by the shrieks from her daughter's room. T'Les had started the music shortly after Commander Tucker's departure; she'd already known that, as she was, T'Pol was not going to respond well to her mate's sudden absence. Perhaps this Terran music would offer some kind of soothing; perhaps it did, for T'Pol emerged focused and shaking, but not driven to violence when she found her bondmate gone and another female present. But she was following his scent, her chin lifted and nostrils flaring, her mouth open to taste him.

She was primal and beautiful, and, if T'Les had still possessed any doubts about her Awakened status, T'Pol's instinctive responses would have eradicated them. Whether she was too young for the Burning seemed irrelevant; her Time was impending. She might have two or three years, but it might be less. Perhaps far less, with the stresses she'd recently endured.

"Where?" she demanded hoarsely, in Vulcan. She'd made a point of speaking Terran while her mate was here, but perhaps she couldn't, in this moment.

"Gone."

"No!" T'Pol's eyes scanned the room, as though needing further proof. "Where?"

T'Les shook her head. "I know not."

It was then that T'Pol had crumpled, shaking, as though, without her mate, nothing could hold her up. It was a feeling T'Les knew well – she had been the same, when her husband died. Remembering what Commander Tucker had said, T'Les went to the wreckage of her daughter, sank to the floor beside her, and gathered the shuddering form close. She couldn't replace the human T'Pol craved, but touch was a form of healing, and that she could offer.

T'Pol rested her head upon her mother's breast; her eyes were wet. "There is no music here, Mother."

The music had been playing continuously. "Do you not hear it, my T'Pol?"

"No, Mother. Not that. Here, in your chest. There is no music in your chest. Only breath."

"I don't understand." But she kept her voice soft. "Will you tell me?"

"Human hearts are located here. When I rest my head upon his chest, I can hear its music. But there is no music here."

"I grieve with you." T'Les could say nothing more. T'Pol couldn't maintain control; she must, if she was to help her daughter. It was as Commander Tucker had said. In this sense, T'Pol was an infant who needed tending and care. An infant couldn't express its needs in language; its parent must decipher what it requires.

T'Pol's need was for contact, something that could stand in pale stead for the loss of her bondmate. Neuropressure, such as she had used when her daughter was an infant. She began with great caution, because, in her current state, T'Pol wasn't likely to access the discipline needed to breathe properly. The spine was the first area any Vulcan learned to manipulate, the first neuropressure performed on a birthling child. Gently, slowly, she applied pressure to the first nodes, and increased it until her daughter's breath sighed out of her, and a small measure of her tension went with it.

With each set of neural nodes she released, T'Pol seemed to come a little further back from the instinctive need to possess her mate. She had led a disciplined life; early efforts to assist her in managing what were clearly powerful emotions revealed a talent for martial combat, which had in turn opened a path to the Ministry of Security, then the Science Directorate. T'Les hadn't agreed with her daughter's career choices, particularly when she followed T'Les' own brother, Soval, to the Consulate on Earth. It seemed a dangerous place for a Vulcan as emotionally intense as her daughter, but the presence of a family member was some assurance, she had thought.

Then the temporary assignment to the human's starship had been indefinitely extended. What had happened after that, T'Les only knew in the limited communications T'Pol sent; communications more revealing in the many aspects of living amongst humans she never mentioned. Their relationship had always been distant; T'Les had attempted to compensate for the more open natures of her first foremother, her husband, and her brother by being a stable and equalizing force in her daughter's life, but T'Pol had perceived it as disinterest and disapproval. She was as strong of will as the infant who had reached into the flame; she responded by setting her own course through her life, and keeping its details a matter of confidence.

Before she had reached the bottom of her daughter's spine, alarmed by a thinness that bordered on fragility, T'Pol was sobbing softly as she came to terms with the fact of her bondmate's absence. Perhaps, if she calmed, she would be able to sense him in her mind, and use that awareness to soothe her need for him.

"Are you able to tend to your breathing, now, daughter?" All other positions would require her to manage her breathing, else risk neural damage, particularly with her current vulnerabilities.

T'Pol stared silently for a moment, her eyes perhaps more eloquent than T'Les had ever seen them. Then she nodded assent, squared her shoulders, and inhaled deeply and slowly. She accepted her mother's touch upon her face and shoulders, but there was something in her that remained distant, and a sense within T'Les's mind that suggested she was more attuned now to another's touch -

Had Commander Tucker learned the demanding discipline of neuropressure? T'Les wouldn't have thought a human capable, but, the more she assisted T'Pol to release her tension, the more she was aware of the echo of the other touch, and that it suited her daughter in ways that her own touch couldn't.

T'Pol said nothing of it, or anything else. She merely closed her eyes and accepted the touch, turned it to her needs. It couldn't be enough, if the situation was as T'Les now believed it to be, but it was clearly some solace against the raw abrasions of the damage done to her still-nascent bonding.

What would it be, to be bound to a human? To engage in sexual relations with a member of such an emotionally motivated, impulsive species? Before T'Pol had brought her human mate here to her home, T'Les would have considered any such union impossible. Humans were a lesser, more primitive species, incapable of a Vulcan level of control, to all indications also incapable of the telerotic joining necessary for a healthy bond.

However, Commander Charles Tucker the Third had given her much to reconsider. He respected Vulcan ways, as he understood them, but not without protesting them when he thought they might damage T'Pol. And still, even after his passionate declaration of love for T'Pol, he had stood at her wedding, in Solnat's robes, and offered whatever comfort and acceptance his presence had brought to his bondmate. And, when T'Pol had come back to her home in a frenzy worthy of plak tow, he had gathered her into himself, given himself to her, despite his clear ethical concerns on the matter, been what she needed him to be – and, even in his leaving, T'Pol had been foremost in his mind.

Her daughter pulled slightly away; T'Les dropped her hands into her lap and waited. T'Pol looked around the room again, with less desperation now. "He has gone."

Many times, T'Les had wished that her daughter had better control of her emotions, that they didn't so often overrun her. She had been truly concerned, when they had discussed her dismissal, and the possibility of children with the man. She hadn't yet known how deeply T'Pol's life had become entwined with the human's. She'd been shocked by T'Pol's hoarse yells. Her stares. She moved from place to place, without reason, without settling. She perched on the edge of the bench. She propelled herself to her feet. She stalked away -

It had been agitating, to see her child so far from control, seeming not to care that she wasbeing motivated by emotion.

But the utterly flat voice with which she had replied was far more alarming.

"I grieve with you, daughter."

T'Pol rose slowly. "Your grief is of no use. Release it; I want it not." She stood, wearing the evidence that a human mate could meet a Vulcan as she required him. Dark bruises on the swell of her hips, her thighs, her breasts. She wrapped her arms around herself as though she needed to do so to hold together in the midst of this chaos. Slowly, she turned back to the entrance to the sleeping areas. "I am bereft, Mother," she had said, and went back into the chamber where she'd claimed her mate beyond all doubt.

The door had closed softly, and then T'Les heard the sound of her sobbing. She'd gone to her own room, to summon a healer adept with broken bonds. The matter must be handled carefully; T'Pol seemed unaware of the depth of her affliction. But, when she emerged with the assurance that the healer would be here within the day, it was to find the door standing open, and her daughter gone.

The message was on the table where Koss' letter had rested. It was now torn to small fragments, and scattered over the floor. T'Pol was gone to Seleya, to seek peace in meditation. She gave no information on when or whether she intended to return, or whether she would return to _Enterprise_ or to Koss.

T'Les was certain that she couldn't find peace in that manner, but the choice was her daughter's, and she couldn't communicate with her at the ancient retreat.

Since, she had awaited some word – from T'Pol, or perhaps Commander Tucker. He seemed the type of man who would care for his mate, whatever she had done, or however he perceived it. Surely, he would contact her, to inquire about T'Pol's well-being?

But he didn't, nor did T'Pol offer any further communication.

T'Les went to her chamber, and removed the ancient pendant from its resting place in an ancient stone box, examining its disparate shapes and textures. How could she have forgotten what the symbol represented, when her recent actions had been in support of its philosophy?

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Infinite. Not limited only to Vulcans, or to those combinations that were seemly to Vulcan sensibilities.

Infinity encompassed all, and so logically must include space for a Vulcan woman to be bound to a human man. Her own resistance to the concept, and her prejudices, had no place in their connection. In attempting to settle her daughter in a purely Vulcan life, she had ignored the fact that T'Pol's life had already expanded to encompass human ideals and behaviors, and that this was a new diversity and a new combination.

Too late for T'Pol, too late for Commander Tucker, T'Les realized the error in her own judgment. She had judged her daughter's bondmate based only upon his species. She was xenophobic, and T'Pol and Commander Tucker had suffered in consequence.

Xenophobia wasn't logical.

She must meditate, until she found a manner to help T'Pol and Commander Tucker heal the damage she had caused to their bond. She must find a way to do this without discussing a bond that neither seemed aware that they shared.

She must take actions to correct her illogic.

At last T'Les was able to focus on the flame, and sink into the clear space of her inner self.


	12. Unsent Letter 4

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **Drunk and all alone in the Everglades, Trip attempts to record a letter to his Cap'n...**_

 _ **This is a solid T rating for alcohol abuse and sexual themes.**_

 ** _"You Might Not Believe It"_**

Cap'n -

Not sure how to say this - hell, I haven't been sober since – well, since it happened. Maybe I won't be able to talk at all.

Since _what_ happened? Yeah, I can hear you askin'.

Since she ripped my heart out, shredded it, and let my red human blood spill all over those damned sands of hers, that's what.

You know me an' desert worlds. Shoulda never let you talk me into goin' with her. Thought it was about perfect - you wantin' me to take care of her, help her - the perfect excuse to be alone together.

Well, I _took care_ of her, all right- neither one of us wore a damned stitch of clothing, once I got my tour of engineering. She said we'd been on the damned planet for six hours before we came up for air enough to get dressed and disembark - she'd know, I guess, with that damned computer brain of hers. Probably assessed and rated my performance every time we 'had sexual relations' - yeah, that's _exactly_ how she puts it. Makes it sound real damned _romantic_ , doesn't it? Like we're two computer systems _interfacin',_ or something, with no _passion_ at all...

But it's not like that, Cap'n. You might not believe it, but she's the most passionate woman I've ever met, let alone made love with. She turned my life and my opinion of what Vulcans are on its ear- she walked right into my soul and set up camp there.

Thing is, I _love_ her. Not just a little - with everything I am. Know how I took you to that jazz club you hated, told you I met the most beautiful woman in the universe there, only I didn't exactly _meet_ her?

Well - surprise, surprise - it was _her_. Betcha didn't see _that_ one comin' did ya? Yup - me an' T'Pol - we shared something that night, somethin' I don't even _pretend_ to understand - but there's no mistakin' what it did to me.

How the hell stupid am _I_ , to think it did somethin' to _her_ , too? Shoulda listened when she told me that she was just 'exploring human sexuality'. Shoulda known it was too good, and a helluva lot too _illogical_ , to last. She got what she wanted, whatever the hell _that_ was, and now - well, now she's married to _him_ \- and where the hell does that leave _me?_

Out here in the Glades, all alone, wishin' I could scratch her itchy back - did you know her back itches, constantly, that she sits there on the Bridge all day, _repressin'_ it - that and bein' chilly, cause we keep things about 25 degrees cooler than what's room temperature, to her? No, betcha she never said a word - doesn't want anyone to know she's _uncomfortable_...

Can almost feel her fingers on me - oh damn, those _fingers_. There's _another_ one you wouldn't believe. Helluva sexy woman, and I've seen you lookin' - you, and Malcolm, and even Travis - god knows, I _love_ _d_ gettin' all tangled up with that body, _in_ that body- but you're all missing the sexiest part of her, right there in the open on the ends of her hands. Do you have any idea how _sensitive_ those fingers are? How much she _feels_ through them? What I can do to her - aww, _hell_ \- just by _touching_ them? What she can do to me _with_ them?

Do ya know _why_ Vulcans don't wanna shake hands with us, Cap'n? Why they use a numbing agent on their fingertips if they think they might have to _touch_ us?

Well, I _do_. And I _understand._...damn, if only her fingers were here now -

Oh, hell. Sorry about that - guess you can tell I kinda forgot what I was doin' here- well, I'm not sending ANYONE _this_ letter- gonna try ta either sleep it off or, better yet, get drunk all over again...


	13. Tripping Throuh the Aftermath

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **Still drinking heavily, Trip ,ets Malcolm talk him into going to his parents' new house, but memories follow him there...**_

 _ **This is a solid T rating for alcohol abuse and sexual themes.**_

 **Tripping Through the Aftermath**

Trip only realized when he tried to turn off the PADD that he didn't have it anymore.

"How th'hell drunk am I?" But nobody seemed to have an opinion except for a fat Glades skeeter that whined in from the left. He didn't even think he could swat it; depth perception was barely nominal. "Go 'way," he told it, the way Lizzie used to when she just a baby. It circled him lazily, landed on the back of his hand, then took off over the black water without even biting him.

That was the answer. He was too pickled even for a skeeter to want his blood.

And he still knew _exactly_ why he was drinking.

Which, of course, meant he wasn't even _close_ to drunk enough.

Which meant he was a hell of a lot drunker that he had any sense being, out here, unless he wanted to end up dead.

"Do I?" Trip frowned, trying to work it out, and wondering what it meant that he had to. Shouldn't it be an easy question? People _wanted_ to live, right? Even that skeeter wanted to live. Was an instinct. So he _must_ want to live.

Only living hurt like hell, when he thought about what he'd almost had, and what she'd done -

No, that wasn't really the problem. It was what _he_ had done, leaving her in her there all alone with that monstrous, "More, more, _more_." Didn't matter if that big fella Koss took her home as soon as she woke up, and made love to her for the next three weeks – she'd still woken up from way too much trellium, all alone, needing him, and he hadn't even been decent enough to leave her a damned _note_.

He hadn't, had he?

What the hell had she been thinking, coming to him like that? Was it just habit, or the trellium? Some kind of full-body Vulcan goodbye? How long were they in her bed, anyway? Why didn't Koss or T'Les or someone _stop_ them?

What had she done, when she woke up all by herself? Was she scared? How had she faced her mother? No doubt, T'Les wouldn't have expected that kind of emotional explosion. She was so controlled, it reminded him of how severe T'Pol had been when she first came aboard. Now he knew she came by it honestly. He could tell T'Les cared for her daughter, but she didn't seem to really connect with T'Pol. She seemed to want her daughter to follow some rigid path she'd laid out, starting maybe even before T'Pol was born, and that meant staying home and getting married to that guy they'd picked for her when she was just a good little Vulcan girl, before she'd been corrupted by humans.

Trip had been jealous of his clone, once, for telling T'Pol how he felt about her before he even got around to doing it. But he couldn't sustain that jealousy; the guy was dead, and gave his life for Trip's. Even saved the ship in the process, and T'Pol had all but admitted that having him around had helped her hang on. No one had known what she was doing with the trellium, then, and _she_ hadn't known what it was doing to her. So he couldn't be too jealous of his clone for paving the way.

Koss was a whole different story.

He was going to have T'Pol for the rest of their lives. Probably a century after Charles Tucker the Third shuffled off some mortal warp coil somewhere. That wasn't fair – even though the man seemed like a decent sort, and Trip was sure he'd be as good to T'Pol as a Vulcan could be.

But she didn't love him, and Trip didn't see how Koss could possibly love a woman he barely knew.

"And here I am, loving her so much I'm drinkin' myself to death, and I leave her there -" He did seem to remember leaving her their music. Not much, but maybe something, if he wasn't making all that up just so he'd feel better about having been such an ass.

He didn't feel any better.

Yes, he'd had to go, had to break whatever this thing was between them was that neither of them could seem to resist. But couldn't he have just waited it out, been what she needed, at least until she had hold of herself again?

What he'd done was wham, bam, thank you ma'am in slow motion - and without any thank you. But she was somebody else's wife, now, and he shouldn't have even gotten to the wham part. Shoulda been a gentleman, stayed sober and out of her bed, so he could think straight.

"Need 'nother drink," he said, and reached for the duffel...but all it had were his damp tangle of extra clothes, sundries, and tool kit, and way too many empties to be anything like a good idea. Had he really drunk it all?

How long had he been here? For that matter, where the hell _was_ here, and how had he gotten here?

He found something hard in the jumble, and pulled it out. A communicator in a waterproof case. There was a sticky note attached to the device. Trip squinted blurrily until he could make out what it said.

"When you run out of booze, call your chauffeur."

Malcolm's handwriting. Is that how he got here? How much had he said? Had he let the Vulcan cat out of the bag?

That made him giggle drunkenly, until he thought of how adorable she'd look while she told him in no uncertain terms that she was not a feline, nor did she have any intention of being in a bag. She was always certain, whether she was marrying to order or pulling him into her bed.

No, not always. Not when the trellium was wearing off. Then she was scared and overwhelmed, and needed someone to help her put her pieces back into some order she could live with again, till next time. Not just someone. Him.

The giggles choked up into something else – not crying, because he didn't have anything left in him to cry. Something that hated himself for leaving her to get through this without him, and hated himself for feeling like it was his job to be her anchor, when she was married to someone else. Hated himself for hoping that ol' Koss wasn't up to the job, because he knew she was the one who'd suffer if her husband didn't help her get grounded again.

If he really loved her, shouldn't he want her to have everything she needed. A husband who knew when to do neuropressure, and when to kiss her? When to tell a joke, and when to back off and give her her space? When to mate, and when to make love? When to yell at her, and when to show her how to play with soap bubbles?

Oh, damn. A Vulcan husband wasn't going to know how to tell the difference. Probably wouldn't see any logic in most of the things that helped when she started to break. Wouldn't even give her chamomile tea, or bites of pecan pie. "No more peaches for you, pepperpot," he said, sadly, and found out he was wrong about not having any more tears to cry.

He needed more booze. And maybe a chauffeur to drive him off the edge of sanity.

* * *

Malcolm was starting to think that he'd better follow the beacon and fish the drunken engineer out of the godforsaken swamp he'd insisted on being beamed to. Five days. A lot could go wrong in five days, particularly in such a primitive climate, and one changed dramatically by the Xindi attack.

"Know the Glades like the back of my hand." Trip had stared dully at his hand like it belonged to someone else. It was shaking; he'd apparently been throwing himself at the bottom of any bottle that got close enough for a few days, already. "And I need to be alone, and for you not to tell anyone you saw me. I can make that an order." The way he was weaving made it an empty threat, but it would be cruel to point it out.

"It doesn't need to be." Malcolm didn't call the bluff. He knew the look; something had gone very wrong during the jaunt to Vulcan, and Trip was covering up – damn naive fool Yank still thought no one suspected, even though anyone who noticed things could probably just about pinpoint when "we're just friends" inevitably became what nature seemed to intend all along, no matter how much the two stubbornest people aboard resisted their obvious mutual attraction.

T'Pol had been matter-of-fact as ever, but she was softer, more emotional. Probably not an easy adjustment, but she'd seemed rather pleased when he took them over to the Vulcan courier. She'd sat on the bench seat with the engineer, even though it was just the three of them. And Trip had been almost beside himself with glee, and nearly bouncing off the ceiling trying to hold it in and keep the open secret.

But that was three weeks ago. The man who'd come back in the middle of the night, falling-down drunk, had seemed on the verge of an emotional collapse. Malcolm had only helped him get to his precious Glades because he was afraid of what would happen if someone else saw him like this. As it was, Captain Archer's explosion in the debriefings had all the wrong kind of focus on them already. With the Captain and T'Pol both unavailable at the moment, it wouldn't do to have the third in command caught in the middle of a bender, especially if he blurted just out who it was he was pining over.

Romance was messy business. Shipboard romance – well, he resisted the obvious charms of a certain Communications Officer for very good reason.

And direct chain of command romance – not a good idea at all.

Inter-species romance? You might think getting pregnant, or being kidnapped, or the tragedy that had come of his messing around with that cogenitor would have taught the man to tread carefully. But he'd gone the other way, and fallen hard for a _Vulcan_.

Except Malcolm got the impression that if either of them had a choice in the matter, when it started, they didn't anymore. Telling Trip to let her go wasn't going to work. Whatever had happened between them, he was still utterly besotted by the woman.

But Trip had been all alone in the swamp for five days, now, with a duffel bag full of clinking glass and sloshing liquid. Malcolm had had to help him onto the transporter platform, and Trip had sat down as though standing up was too much effort.

It made Malcolm relieved that he'd thought to put the coded biosign sensor in his friend's boot. If Trip got into any real trouble, it would let him know, and he could deal with it, even if that meant getting Phlox involved.

The communicator bleeped from his desk. He'd made sure the one he slipped in Trip's bag was on a closed circuit with this one. Not that Trip couldn't engineer a bypass half drunk or better, but he probably wouldn't even notice, in the state he'd been in when he left, and he'd seemed famned determined to stay as close to that state as the bottles would let him.

"Reed's Livery, at your service."

Silence, for a moment, then a bleary drawl. "Malcolm? That you?"

"None other. Ready to return to civilization, are we?"

Another silence. His brain must be swimming in the contents of those bottles. Malcolm waited. Rushing a drunk was never a useful tactic.

"Dunno." He'd gotten used to the engineer's way of mangling the language, but the alcohol was amplifying the effect. "Dunno what I want, anymore."

Malcolm was sure Trip knew exactly what, or rather _whom_ , he wanted, but it probably helped to pretend he didn't, so he let the man hold onto his lie for now. "Well, I don't have to beam you back here to stay. I can set you down somewhere else, if you'd rather." He was getting the glimmer of an idea, a way to help Trip sober up without letting the whole ship know how soused he was, or why.

"Somewhere else? Malcolm – I'm not even sure where I am. I mean, I know I'm in the Glades, but..."

"I can trace you."

"Where th' hell would I go? Nowhere's far enough to forget her -" Malcolm could almost hear the tongue go into the cheek, see the hand trying to put the blurted words back. "I didn't say that."

"I didn't hear it, either. Didn't you say your parents bought a new house in Mississippi? No one would look for you there."

"I'm a helluva mess...but then, Mom always said I'd never be too old or in too much trouble to come home to her and Dad...you're a good friend, Malcolm." Trip's voice choked up, but Malcolm was sure it had more to do with a certain First Officer than it did him.

"Just give me a few minutes to get to the transporter and make sure no one will come sniffing around while I get you relocated."

"Bring more booze," came the broken reply. "Bring me enough to forget everything, Malcolm."

* * *

"Come on then, Kath, let's take a walk outside, before you wear down the new floors." She'd never tell him what was bothering her inside. He'd never figured out why, but, when you loved someone, you didn't need to know all the whys and wherefores. You just did what you needed to help them get through the rough spots, and, if you were lucky, they did the same for you.

Charlie had been lucky with Kath Tucker for the last forty-five years, but, lately, life had thrown them more than their fair share of rough spots. It was enough to make anyone pace.

Kath went to the door and slipped on her shoes. Charlie met her there, but he didn't touch her yet. That could wait till they were outside, too. It would only make her more restless, now.

He held the door for her, and she led the way at a good brisk clip. Charlie preferred to amble, and they did that plenty, but this walk was for Kath, to help her get rid of some of that energy she needed to put somewhere. In the old place, she'd fixed things. Or, if their middle child was to be believed, _tried_ to fix them.

But there was nothing that needed puttering with in this brand-new house, and, without Lizzie to help her orchestrate their grand plans, Charlie wasn't sure that Kath wanted to fix anything, anyway.

"How do you always know when I need to go for a walk, Charlie?" Her hand slipped into his and squeezed. Charlie smiled. It always helped to get her outside.

"That's a trade secret. It's in the husband's handbook." He waited for her to slow near the old willow tree. It reminded them both of the one they'd hung a tire from when the kids were little, at their old place. That place was gone, now. It had been too close to the edge of the blast zone, and condemned with hundreds of thousands of other people's homes. Another kind of death, to add to losing their only daughter.

"Don't think so much about it, Charlie. We can't put it back the way it was; dwelling on it won't help."

"How did you know I was thinking about it, Kath?"

"Trade secret. It's in the wife's handbook." He loved the way she could turn his own words around and make him feel better with them.

"That so?" She nodded, and the fading light caught in her clear blue eyes. Eyes all the kids had inherited, although she maintained that Trip's were his, and not hers. "Well, then, wife, can you tell me what the handbook says you're supposed to do to help a husband _stop_ dwelling on it?"

"No. But I can _show_ you." She leaned in close and kissed him. Charlie let himself fall into it -well, really, there'd never been any way for him _not_ to fall into it, when Kath kissed him. An effective technique, kissing.

"Do you want to talk about it, love, or just walk?" Pushing her too hard only made her mad, but asking usually got enough of it out that she could feel better. Might take three or four walks, but this was a beautiful property, and walking was good exercise for older folks, anyway.

"I don't know if there's anything really to say. Just an unsettled feeling, is all. Surprised that Trip didn't come home. I know it's going to be strange for him, coming to the new house, but -"

"He said the Captain asked him to escort the Vulcan home – I never can remember her name -"

"Sub-commander T'Pol. Well, I guess she lost the rank when she resigned." She sighed. "It doesn't take that long to go to Vulcan and come back again."

"Maybe she's showing him the sights as a way of thanking him for going along."

Kath snorted a bit. "I don't think Vulcans are the sightseeing type, and I've never heard of one saying thank you, either."

"Well, she looked pretty fragile in the ceremonies they televised. Out of her element. Maybe her government wasn't happy about her going along. I can see our boy giving the Vulcan High Command what-for on a lady's behalf."

"She's not a _lady,_ Charlie. She's a Vulcan. And from what Trip's said about her combat skills, a Vulcan who wouldn't be needing any backup."

"News said the ship's gonna be in spacedock at least another three weeks, for repairs. He's a grown man, long since. He was away a long time, and men have needs their parents can't supply."

"And he's been through hell. I know all that, Charlie." She sighed against his shoulder. "But I've just got this feeling that there's something going on with Trip, something that's keeping him away, and that whatever it is, it's not good."

"You'll never stop worrying, will you?"

She pulled her head back to look at him, and he saw the mingled sorrow and determination there. Some things didn't need to be said.

Charlie pulled her in close, and kissed her long and slow, and they wrapped their arms around one another's waists as the moved on from the welcoming willow, following the looping crushed-stone path at a slower pace, now that she'd started to open up.

* * *

Malcolm tried the number on the directory again; still no answer from Commander Tucker's parents. He'd already left them a message, but, given the state Trip had been in when he beamed him down , and his demand that he set him down "close, but not too close; I don't wanna drop in on their dinner," he'd feel better if the elder Charles Tucker and wife knew what they were getting. For all Trip was fun-loving and sometimes annoyingly unrestrained, he didn't strike Malcolm as the type who liked to be sloppily drunk, so maybe his parents hadn't had much experience with him like this. If he could just tell them in person, it would be better for everyone involved.

But they weren't answering. Had he gotten the wrong Charles Tuckers?

* * *

Trip staggered along. It was pretty here, and he'd traded off the empties with Malcolm. He had two new bottles, or was it three? When they were gone – then he was gonna have to sober up and face the truth. But not till they were gone, dammit, down to the last drop.

"She'd love it here," he said to nobody, as he stared down a little country lane sheltered by enormous live pines. "Wouldn't admit it, but I'd know. She'd get all intent, with her scanner out, recordin' everything, every millimeter the scientist. But she'd also be touching, and smelling – and relaxing. Might even kiss me again, in a place like this."

He walked in under the pines. Only one place down here, so he couldn't get lost, except in his fantasy of bringing her here, watching her take it all in, then finding some place where he could spread a blanket, and have a couple more handy, in case his hot-blooded lover got chilly, and they could pretend they were watching the stars while they got all wrapped up in each other…

Except that wasn't going to happen. Not now, and not _ever_.

T'Pol was Koss' _wife._

Not _his_. Didn't matter that they'd sure as hell _acted_ like she they were married, right after the fact. That he still had scratches and lacerations from those days. Didn't matter that those days in her bed, the way she'd been, would put any human honeymoon to shame. She wasn't his, and, somehow, he was going to have to accept that she'd never be. That, if she decided to stay on Vulcan, he wasn't likely to _ever_ see her again.

He thought he remembered sending her a letter that said to stay the hell on her own world and make babies, or something like that, anyway. Had he sent it, or was that when he dropped his PADD in the swamp? If he sent it, would she turn down the commission Jon was pushing to get for her?

Would she do that because she had that damned Vulcan tendency to take everyone at their word, and to assume even stupid damned drunk human engineers meant what they said, because, on her world, everyone always _thought_ about what they were going to say before they actually opened up their mouths and _said_ it?

What the hell had he done? How was he supposed to go back to the ship and pretend that everything – or _anything_ \- could be okay if she wasn't there? One thing to have her avoiding him, or to be avoiding her. They never seemed to stay away from one another for long, these days; there was always a strange pull toward her, like she was his opposite pole. He wasn't sure, but he thought maybe she felt it too.

Something had brought her to him, at her mother's. Something that even getting married to that Koss guy didn't seem to wipe out of her.

Maybe she should stay away, if she was gonna throw herself at him again, because he honestly didn't know how he was supposed not to catch her, if she did.

Or how he was going to survive being anywhere near her, if she didn't.

"This is one hell of a mess you've gotten yourself into, this time, Tucker."

And from somewhere in the deep places of his soul, he thought he heard a soft, tense little whisper. A whisper that tried to control itself, but didn't quite get there. A whisper that both soothed and tormented him.

"I can't argue with that."

"Oh, damn, pepperpot. I miss you."

Trip staggered along, the fragrant beauty of a late evening taunting him. He could feel her, and knew how she would take her quiet kind of pleasure in the profusion of greens and vivid splashes of blues, purples, pinks, oranges, and reds. He could see her face; it would be halfway between Proper Vulcan and Shutters Thrown Wide. Trip loved her like that; it gave him the thrill of the hunt, finding ways to carry her the rest of the distance, and the chance to enjoy every bit of it.

She'd pretend she wasn't pretending that she had no idea what he was up too, but, over time, she'd be walking a little closer to him, swaying her hips just a little more, parting her lush lips, flaring her nostrils, and turning to him with wide dilated eyes as she went up on her toes -

She could barely reach him when she did that. How the hell was she going to manage to kiss a guy as tall as Koss?

Wait. She _wouldn't_ be kissing Koss. Not with her lips; not unless she taught him how. Would she _want_ to? Would he demand she give him a _logical_ reason? Probably wouldn't be because of how beautiful she looked, kissing him, or how amazing she tasted, or the way those lips, tongue, and teeth felt as she learned him, again and again -

"Oh, damn." The thought of T'Pol teaching her husband – her _Vulcan_ husband - how to kiss and make love was almost sickening. Not because Koss was Vulcan, either. No, this was pure male possessive rage, plain and simple.

The hell was that he knew it, and couldn't do a damned thing about it. Everything in him said that T'Pol was _his_. The way she'd laid claim to him sure as hell seemed to make it clear that he was hers, but then, he'd already known that. If he hadn't been hers a long time before that, the moment when she dropped her robe to show him that she'd been doing his neuropressure and arguing about "who is attracted to whom" - leave it to T'Pol to flirt grammatically! - the whole time, she'd been naked under that robe, wanting him, still not sure whether he wanted her, too…

Or maybe even how to go about it. Had she researched it, or just instinctively known that any resistance he might have had would be erased by her kisses, by the look in her eyes, and the way the candlelight made that lovely skin glow, and traced out the curves that begged him to touch?

"I gotta stop this. Least till I find someplace private – no, not even then. She's _his_ wife, _not_ mine."

She _was_ Koss' wife, and he didn't want her to kiss her new husband. But then, she would have no more kisses. And T'Pol loved kissing more than any woman Trip had ever locked lips with. He ached to kiss her himself, let her devour him, make those little feral noises pop up out of her throat…

"Every time I think of her, it goes there. You're a poor excuse for a gentleman, Tucker. Get over it. The lady's made her bed, and you don't get to lie in it." Except when she dragged him into it, that is, and pulled him into her. Didn't that say she wanted him? Could there be any doubt? Hadn't she said that the things she felt on trellium were never without reason; that they were the things she might have felt, without all that Vulcan training? Yes, her _own_ feelings, just liberated, intensified.

So _something_ had brought her to him; some part of her wanted to be with him. But why? Was she afraid to lose control with Koss? To reveal that she'd had a human lover? Well, it was sure as hell too late now to try to pretend they were just colleagues, if that had been her plan.

Why did he want it to be because he was _himself,_ and not any other reason? That the trellium was so that she'd be brave enough to do what she longed to do? That his pull on her was stronger than her marriage, and a hell of a lot more _real_?

That was certainly not a gentlemanly thing to want.

"I suppose that depends on how you define gentleman." She'd said that to him once, and a little part of him had hated her, because she knew things about him no one else did, and she wasn't at all who his fantasies had painted her to be, and she didn't seem even a little bit interested in trying to live up to the part he'd assigned her.

But now, he knew it for what it was. Jealousy. Yearning she couldn't dare to let loose, and which she had no idea how to express. He'd been intimate with another woman; didn't matter that it wasn't sex. To T'Pol, hands were a primary erogenous zone. He'd stuck his into a box of pebbles with another woman. He hadn't known what it would do to her; hadn't really even thought of her.

She'd been shocked, and angry.

Now, she seemed to be neither. Just -

"Bereft. Desolate. Hollow."

Human words. He'd done that to her; given her feelings that her own world had no words for. He hadn't meant to, any more than she'd meant to bite him that first time, when she needed to anchor herself against spiraling emotion and sensation.

He'd made her feel human things, and now she had those emotions, and a Vulcan husband. How could _he_ understand? Would he even _try_?

How could she be married to a _Vulcan_? That made no sense. It was _wrong_.

"She's _supposed_ to be married to _me_."

Just because it sounded like he was the jilted lover didn't mean that it wasn't true. Wait. Was he actually, really thinking of _marrying_ T'Pol? Not just to get her out of this thing with Koss, like he'd offered at the Fire Plains, but really, honestly, _Mom and Dad_ married?

Yes. That's exactly what he was thinking. And that meant he needed a drink. Or as many as he could choke down before he passed out again.

There was the sound of crunching gravel. _S_ _he_ probably woulda heard that two minutes back. Someone or something was coming this way, and Trip didn't want to have to explain what he was doing lurking on this road in -

Where was he again? Why was he here? Hadn't he been in the swamp?

Didn't matter. Knew he was too drunk to even try to hide it, and he might get apprehended as an intruder...that sure as hell wouldn't look good on his Permanent Record…

Trip got himself out of there, staggering off the path into a pretty half-wilderness of flowers, live pine, willow, and moss, until he got hung up in a clump of fuschia azalea bushes, lived up to his nickname by tripping and twisting his damned ankle hard enough to make him yelp – so much for the covert operations – and fell into a bed of pretty zinnias just the color of one of T'Pol's sweet work uniforms. He had just enough time to get a whiff on the way down and decide that she smelled way better when his head found a rock at the border of the bed, and it was lights out for ol' Trip Tucker.


	14. Buried Treasure

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **Trip tries to come to grips with T'Pol's marriage, to get a handle on his drinking, and to repair the damage he caused to a flower bed.**_

 _ **This is a solid M rating for alcohol abuse and sexual activity.**_

Malcolm tried again; still no answer. These had to be the right Charles Tuckers, unless Trip had been way too drunk to remember where his parents lived. That could be, but it didn't seem likely; he got the feeling the Tucker clan was extremely close-knit and had no compunctions about mucking about in one another's business.

Enough of this. He needed to go check things out in person; make sure that Trip got home and his parents were willing to take him in, even if he was a stinking mess, at the moment. If they weren't, he could take him to the Highlands, where he kept a cottage under an assumed name, and let him dry out there. He spent a few minutes checking the satellite feeds on the area; only one house down that lane, and it was registered to K. Tucker and C.A. Tucker, Jr. so that must be it. He checked the ship's scanners for biosigns, and found three adult humans; two males, and a female.

Two of the humans were moving, and their signals overlapped; walking arm in arm, perhaps? Like a married couple might, of an evening. The third was about 500 meters from their location, off the trail, and not moving.

In a bed of _flowers_?

"That'd be Trip, then," he said to himself. "Passed out again." He'd seen that half a dozen times in the last few days. Man seemed bent on drinking himself into a stupor as many times as he could manage.

Whatever had happened, he was a man who needed a friend. It made Malcolm uneasy, and not just because this was so out of character for Trip. What bothered him was knowing that, if the engineer was in this state, somewhere there was a Vulcan scientist who was suffering – and she wasn't the type to have a friend to come and fish her out of whatever situation she might get herself into at a time like this. Not so long ago, he would've thought she'd be fine no matter what. But he'd seen her running through the ship in her underwear, sweaty and trying to lure him into her quarters for the purpose of _mating._ She'd said it just like that, too, and damned if that hadn't gotten enough of a rise out of him to be thankful for the EV suit.

He'd seen her after Rajiin was done with her, and on the _Seleya_ , when the trellium-D proved that she did indeed have emotions. She'd been magnificent, even though she became one serious threat along the way. He could imagine her surviving on the Vulcan desert, needing no one -

Except she _did_ need someone. She'd been mercurial at that insectoid hatchery; she'd come utterly unhinged at Azati Prime. Then there'd been Lorian – proof positive that the two of them could be together, could have a child together. He'd always thought there was something else going on with her, these last weeks, but, if there was, she wasn't talking, and neither was Trip, even though it was obvious that they'd been in the clinches at least once, and a hell of a lot more than that, unless Malcolm Reed had lost all of his observational skills.

What had gone wrong? Had they gone back to rubbing one another the wrong way, or was it something else?

And why was _he_ focused on T'Pol, when it was Trip lying in a flowerbed in Mississippi? Tactictly, that was ridiculous; he couldn't do anything to help T'Pol when she was presumably still on Vulcan, and Trip needed him right now.

He put in for a runabout to the surface; being on _Enterprise_ allowed him a few privileges. Then he called up to the Bridge, and let Hoshi know she had the ship, and he'd check in in an hour or two. It was all informal; Starfleet had personnel aboard, but they'd all decided that they didn't want their ship without one of her own in the Captain's chair, so they were all spelling one another while the Big Three got some much-needed time away.

And while one of them seemed determined to commit suicide by alcohol.

He got himself down to the coordinates – not too far from where the elder Tuckers were, in a clear place where there weren't any flowers to disturb. Before he could land, though, he saw the two of them, running toward the place where the third figure lay, crumpled and unmoving.

"Don't just rush in, Charlie. You don't know who or what's in there!" Kath peered into the long dappled shadows in under the live pines. Someone had tracked through the grass, broken branches off a shrub or two in their passing.

"I know the sound of hurt, and I'll be careful, Kath. You wait here, and you can run up back to the house and call for help, if we need it."

He didn't give her a chance to argue. The Tuckers were known to be men of action. He was off, loping through the wild cottage garden in the direction the crashing and yelping had come from.

She knew she should wait, like he'd told her, but she couldn't bear to have him go off into potential danger all alone. Not with this terrible nagging feeling that something was wrong with Trip. Weren't bad things supposed to come in threes?

She thought she heard something behind her, but she wasn't going to leave Charlie now. She kept running, and caught up to him about 4 meters from a patch of zinnias.

There was a man's body in the flowerbed, filthy and far too still. Even from hear, she could smell the booze on him.

"How the hell did a drunk wind up here?" Charlie asked, not seeming surprised to see her. "For that matter, why the hell is a drunk _here_? There's nothing around here. Not a bar or a liquor store -and this one doesn't look like he has any use for anything other than those."

Kath took advantage of his observations to edge around him and get closer to the crumpled figure. There was something familiar about him, even though he was face-down, lying in shadow.

"Kath, what are you doing?"

"I don't think he just passed out." The way he was laying – didn't she remember that these beds were edged in river stones? "He's at the right angle to have hit his head on the way down. He could really be hurt, Charlie." She edged around; one of the man's arms was thrown outward, hiding his face.

Everything snapped into flashes.

Tousled, dirty, blonde hair.

Strong shoulders in what once had been a Hawaiian shirt, but now might be better off in a rag bin.

That hand – a hand so familiar to her that she didn't even need to see his face to know.

"It's Trip, Charlie! Call for help; he's hurt. I don't want to move him until we know; bring back the scanner, because you can get back before the medics get here." She reached for the outflung hand, gave it a little stroke and a squeeze. "Hold on, Trip, you're home. It's Mom. Dad's here, too. We're with you; we'll get you help."

"Trip – how the hell?"

"Mama?" He started to stir, cracked his eyes open. "Helluva headache..." He trailed off into a groan. "How much'd I drink?"  
"Considerably more than you can handle, I'm afraid." Kath knew the voice, but couldn't place the clipped British tones of the man in the shadows with Charlie. "Ma'am, I have a scanner here, and a sensor on your prodigal son, as well. He's got a minor concussion, but he's safe enough to move, other than the fact that he's almost certainly going to lose everything in his stomach soon as he's anywhere near upright."

"Lost it on her pretty boots nce, Malcolm, ever tell you that?"

"No, you never did. But I'll thank you to aim elsewhere than mine."

"You gonna pick me up off the deck platin', too?"

"No deck plating here, Trip. Just some broken flowers, and a couple of worried Tuckers."

"Tucker here – what do you need, Malcolm?"

Kath listened to the interchange. Trip didn't really seem to be coherent, and he didn't let go of her hand, so she let him keep it while his friend – Malcolm Reed, was that his name? - finished with the scanner, then fished around in a kit and came up with a hypospray. "I need you to hold still, sir." He looked at Kath with penetrating gray eyes, and said, "I'm afraid all his thoughts are pretty well saturated, ma'am."

"My name's Kath. You're from _Enterprise_ , aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am – Kath, is it? We've been in a few scrapes, your son and I. It's my pleasure to help you get him inside."

He woke up all alone, in his old room.

Then he couldn't be awake, because his old room was gone; knocked down along with the old house, because it was too close to the charred gorge in the Earth that was his old hometown, where Lizzie's condo had been, and the house she was planning to build a little way off.

Damn, he missed her.

"Which one?" He asked himself. Lizzie, or T'Pol? "Both." And then he had a good cry that made his head feel like it might fall off if he tried to move it. "Need a damned drink," he grumbled.

"Not until you can pour it for yourself, son."

"Dad - ?" Trip struggled to sit up; failed. "Feel like she kicked me in the head."

"Maybe she did, son. Don't try to move yet. You've got a bit of a concussion, and a bloodstream mostly made of tequila."

"Not 'nough. Need more."

"I told you; when you can pour for yourself, and clean up what you spill. And don't try arguing with me. It's your mama's rule, and you _know_ she's not going to back down."

"How th' hell'd I get here?" It was like Dad was talking through gauze, and like he was looking at him through that sheer veil she'd worn over her hair. T'Pol in a wedding dress – oh, hell.

"That would be your friend Malcolm. Said you wanted to be alone, but that he felt it was his job to keep you from getting' yourself killed while you drank it out. Looks like you were pretty determined, thoguh. Want to talk about it, son? Might help."

"No. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to _think_ about it. I don't want to have _lived_ it. I want it all to be a damned bad dream. So please, Dad, get me another drink, so I can go back to figuring how much I need to drink to pretend I've forgotten for a minute or two."

"You're too smart to think that can work, son." Dad came closer, sat down beside the bed, and shook his head gently. "Whatever it is, you're going to need to get it off your chest. If you haven't poisoned it out of you with booze yet, I don't think that's a possibility."

"I know it isn't." He'd figured that much out, anyway. She was in his heart and his head, and she wasn't just going to go away, whether he wanted her to or not. He managed to turn his head a little, first one way, then the other. His stomach rolled, so he closed his eyes. "How am I in my old room, Dad?" That seemed like the safest way to change the subject.

"They gave every family a few hours with anti-grav devices to get their things out. You know your mama kept your rooms the way you left them; she thought you might like it if you came to visit; help you feel more at home here in the new place."

"She's sweet. Mother hens..." But he didn't want to think about the strong maternal streak in the woman who was going to have someone _else's_ babies. Not when Dad wasn't going to let him have some hair of the dog that had been using him as its personal chew toy. "Sorry I didn't call first," he quipped. He seemed to remember staggering into a bush, falling, sweet orangey-pink flowers that made him think of her yet again..."And that I wrecked your flower bed."

"You're always welcome, Trip." Mom bustled in, with towels and clean clothes over her arm. "But you're only welcome downstairs _after_ you get cleaned up. You're covered in swamp mud, and you're not tracking it all over my new house. There's Tripification, and there's just making a mess."

"Yes, ma'am," Trip said. "Sorry you found me so sloppy drunk, Mom. Hope you know it's not – well, not a regular thing."

"Trip." He'd never noticed that T'Pol said it exactly that way, when she wanted his attention, as though she knew exactly what tone Mom used. He didn't want to think about T'Pol, but she kept sneaking around the edges of every other thought. Mom helped him out, this time. "You're a grown man. You've been through – more than I'll ever be able to understand. You've earned the right to fall down for a while."

"And we don't mind being the place you landed, son."

"Although I rather mind being the one elected to see to your toilet, Commander Tucker." Malcolm walked in with a basin of steaming water while Mom set up the towels and a bag of supplies.

"You've got to be kidding," Trip said. "Mom, you can't make Malcolm give me a _bath_ – he's a Tactical Officer, not a nurse!" He winced; he hadn't meant to raise his voice.

"Your other choices are your dad or me," Mom said, in her not-backing-down voice. Just like T'Pol. Neither of them willing to budge a millimeter when their minds were made up.

"Come on, Trip. We're mates."

Trip damned near choked; T'Pol, again, and her way of calling sex 'mating' as though they weren't anything other than animals fulfilling an instinctive drive with one another. And yet, the way she was, the way she claimed him, begged him to claim her, demanded it of him...it was primal, no doubt, but there was a hell of a lot of passion, there, too. Was he a fool to think, even after all the times she'd told him otherwise, that it was something deeper than curiosity or lust?

"All right, all right," he said, biting his lip to try to keep himself from giving away the way his mind was going. "I'll, uh, let Malcolm give me my bath – but could you all give me a few minutes first, so I can take care of a little urgent personal business?"

Once they were gone, Trip masturbated roughly, just wanting to get it over with, because he hated the way he couldn't stop thinking about making love with another man's wife.

"So, what did you and T'Pol do while you were on Vulcan?"

Trip clearly didn't want to talk about whatever had happened, but he wasn't going to be able to start getting past it if he didn't. That's why Malcolm was doing the bath; so he could nudge Trip toward getting it out in the open so he could stop poisoning himself with the festering memories.

"She wanted to get married."

Well, he certainly hadn't seen that one coming. Odd, how bitter Trip sounded about it. Malcolm had always pegged him as the marrying kind, even if it would take a damned strong woman to deal with him. Of course, T'Pol was a stronger woman than any human could be...was that too much for him?

Or had he gone through with it, and then had second thoughts?

Only way to find out was to ask.

"So, what did you do?"

"I stood there wearing Vulcan robes in her mother's front yard, and watched her do it." Trip turned his head away, and Malcolm got busy with the bath supplies, to give him a minute.

"You mean, she didn't marry _you_? I didn't think there was anyone else in her life."

"It's not like that. Vulcans – the parents _arrange_ the marriages." He nearly spat the word. "She was promised to this guy when she was seven years old. And she just went ahead and did what she was told to do, even though -" He clamped his lips closed, and didn't say anything else.

"Then – I'm sorry. For both of you. When you went with her, I thought - "

"You weren't the only one. But I don't want to talk about it any more, Malcolm. Maybe not ever. I've gotta figure out how to live with it, but I can't do that yet. I've got to have a drink."

Malcolm had strict orders from Mrs. Tucker, but he figured there were certain things mothers just didn't understand. He got Trip a drink, and followed that up with three refills, because sometimes getting drunk was the only thing to do, and the despair in Trip's face seemed to demand nothing less.

Three days later, Trip took a walk alone outside. He had only muzzy memories of getting here; he'd been way too drunk, for way too long, for anything else.

Might be he was still a little tipsier than he really wanted to be in front of Mom and Dad, but he was doing the best he could to wean himself, and they were letting him do it his own way, and in his own time. When a bottle got low, there'd be a new one. He'd forgotten how non-judgmental his parents were; how safe he'd always felt, growing up. Except for David's sometimes over-the-top pranks, it had been a great childhood.

He should have insisted that they come here, first. Before Vulcan. Mom and Dad might not have fallen immediately in love with her, but Trip had no doubt that they would have accepted her. Wouldn't have been hard to see how good they were together. How she made him happy in a way no one else ever had.

He should have brought her here, taken her for walks, let her survey the place, warm up to him away from the ship, and then begged her to let him be her husband, to make this thing between them formal, the way the Trip and T'Pol on that other _Enterprise_ had done.

What would she have said, if he'd actually realized that she was all that he wanted – the woman who felt like home? Would she have married him, or turned him down?

What felt like a few lifetimes ago, he'd told Kov that regret was an emotion he might want to avoid. He should've remembered that advice. He'd thought he had time. Time for her to come to terms with what trellium had done to her, and the place it was still going to have to have in her life. Time for them to figure out where they were, what they wanted, what they were doing. What that crazy day when they thought Jon had died meant to them both. Time to imagine what life after the Expanse might look like.

Time to figure out how the hell to be together without all the unexpected obstacles being from different planets kept throwing up in their faces. Time to be someplace where they weren't a Vulcan and a human, but just Trip and T'Pol, figuring it all out, together.

But he hadn't known what was coming. Hadn't known he was on a countdown. Maybe she'd suspected, and that's why she'd packed so much? Maybe she'd wanted him to try to talk her out of it? Is _that_ why she invited him along? He'd suspected that Jon was behind that, that he'd asked T'Pol to take care of him the way he was supposed to take care of her, to keep them from figuring out that he was worried about them both.

Did the Cap'n have any idea at all what he was doing, sending them off alone together?

He found the place where he'd started tearing up the garden, and followed it to the bed of zinnias he'd trampled. Tripified, Mom would say. That's what she always said, when his antics got out of hand, and something was broken. She'd even forgive him for this.

But Trip was embarrassed by this proof of how out of it he'd been, and he decided on the spot to fix it before he left. He wasn't stupid; he knew he had to stop drinking and get a handle on his emotions. He couldn't go back to work if he didn't. Whether she came back or not, he had a life to live, and he didn't want to live it drunk. He could leave _Enterprise_ , transfer to _Columbia_. But he'd still have to deal with his own feelings, or she was just going to follow him from one ship to the other, even if she was still on Vulcan with Koss.

Some good strong physical activity could only help. Dirty hands would be inconvenient for reaching for bottles; the quiet and green-smelling air might scrub a bit of the desert minerals and smoky orange-grove smell of Vulcan desire out of his mind.

Yeah, right.

If he couldn't get his head on straight, maybe he could at least figure out how to fake it, the way he had when Lizzie was killed, and he was terrified Starfleet would realize how badly he wanted to get out there and kill every damned Xindi they met with his bare hands, while spitting Lizzie's name in their faces.

Course, he'd nearly self-destructed that time…

Her voice again. Calm; logical. And still, somehow, accepting of his turmoil. "One problem at a time."

"Thanks, pepperpot," he whispered. He could almost feel her hand resting gently on his shoulder in silent comfort. "That's good advice. First the flowerbed. Just that." He'd seen some zinnias overgrowing their pots up on the deck; maybe Mom would let him bring those down and save him goin' out among regular people. He could handle Mom and Dad, and Malcolm dropping by for a few hours every couple of days. But this was his cocoon; he couldn't take any more than this, right now.

He went back up to the house with a new sense of purpose. There was the bottle he'd brought downstairs, waiting for him on the table with a clean glass. There was also the smell of fresh catfish frying. He went through to the kitchen, snagging up the bottle and the glass as he passed them. First he'd talk to Mom, then he'd pour, so he wasn't tempted to just climb into the bottle and try yet again to get too numb to hurt, even though he oughtta know by now that it wasn't going to work.

"You don't have to cook for me, Mom."

"No, Trip. I don't." Mom turned to smile at him. "I _get_ to cook for you. You don't have to eat if you're not hungry, but I spent the last year not sure I was ever going to get the chance to cook for you again, while I was still trying to get used to this kitchen, and the fact that Lizzie isn't ever going to come through that door again with a bunch of flowers, offering to set the table and do the dishes, as long as I feed her and she doesn't have to go home and eat alone." A tear slipped free of her eye and ran down her cheek. Trip suddenly pictured T'Pol's face, when he came into the Ready Room at Azati Prime, and knew she'd been crying for the Cap'n, even though she was trying like hell to hide it with her Vulcan mask.

Two women he loved, hurting. He hadn't figured out how to help T'Pol – not till it was too late, anyway – but he could get it right with Mom, maybe.

"I guess I never thought about it that way. Mom – she was your only daughter. How do you -?"

She turned halfway back to pan, and sniffled a bit before saying, in a thick voice. "I just keep breathing, Trip. And I try to believe that it's all going to be easier, eventually, and I remember all the good times, and the bad ones, because they're all treasures I won't ever get any more of, now."

There was a message in there. Trip knew it, and saved the thought. He wasn't ready for a message, just yet, but maybe soon. Right now, Mom was the one really hurting. He came closer to her, and put his hand on her shoulder. The breath sighed out of her; that reminded him of the first time he tried neuropressure, and the way she'd sounded when he got it right.

No. Stop thinking about it. About _her_. Keep your focus on Mom.

"And then I come home, wreck your garden, and don't want to do anything but drink myself into oblivion. Hell of a thing for a son to do to a grieving mother."

"You're here, Trip, and you're alive. I know you. If you're drinking, that's what you need to do. Maybe your brain needs a vacation; maybe your heart and soul do, too. We'll be your safe place, until you can face the rest of the universe again. It's no trouble, any more than changing your diapers was when you were a baby. People need what they need, son, when they need it. Helping them get it is what love is."

There was a message in that, too. He was going to have a lot to think about. But Mom first.

"Now you've got me cryin', too. How'd I get so lucky, to have a family like this?"

"You're part of what makes us special, Trip. Never forget that about yourself, Trip. If you can, be as gentle with you as you were with Lizzie when she was little."

"I don't know if I can do that, Mom. But I _do_ want to get my head on straight. I want not to need this stuff to dull it out." He gestured with the bottle and glass he still had in his other hand. "Might take me a while – but I thought maybe I'd start by fixin' up that flower bed I was napping in. I notice you've got some zinnias out on the deck that need tending. Mind if I put myself to work on that?"

He set the glass down on the counter, and poured three fingers' worth. Any more, and he'd just climb in and forget everything else all over again. First time he'd managed to measure; maybe that was a good sign?

"After lunch, Trip. Funny thing about those zinnias. Elizabeth grew them; we were going to plant them in window boxes – half for her, and half for us. She brought them over for me to water before her last trip, and she was planning to come the next weekend, for the planting. But instead, she got killed, and we had to move. I haven't been able to bring myself to do anything but water them, since. It would be a relief, and a weight off my soul, if you gave them better treatment than I can."

Trip sipped while he listened, then set the glass down and gave his mom a big hug. "She always did want to take care of us all, like she thought it was her job. I think this would make her happy."

"I think you're right, Trip. Will you go find your dad, and let him know lunch is ready?"

He was reaching in to tease out the roots of about the fortieth zinnia – Lizzie had always tended to do things big, and Mom encouraged her – when his fingers found something hard and round. He wiggled and shook the root ball gently, working the bit out.

It was metallic, small, hollow in the middle – a nut or a thick washer, maybe, or jewelry. He took it to the watering can and washed it clean – and then he sat there on the damp ground, clutching the ring in his hand, and the pain came out in big hurting sobs.

He'd given this ring to Lizzie, when he joined Starfleet. It was a claddagh; something she'd always wanted. He got her to draw what she wanted, and then he made it for her, to her specs, as close as he could manage. She'd been thrilled with it, worn it all the time. He could almost imagine it slipping off her finger, her not noticing till later – or did she have time to miss it?

It was almost like she'd buried it there for him, a message from beyond that damned scar in the ground that was the only grave she'd ever have.

He took the ring back to the house with him, and gave it to Mom. Well, he tried to.

"You made that for her, Trip. Seems to me it's yours, now."

"It won't fit me, Mom."

"You don't need to wear it. Put it in a box. It's small enough to take on _Enterprise_. Maybe someday, you'll want to give it to someone else, someone whose finger it'll fit. I think Elizabeth would love that."

Trip nodded and plastered a smile on his face. He knew he wasn't fooling Mom; he never had. But he just couldn't talk about it, right now. Couldn't mention to her how he'd noticed right off that the small emerald heart was perfect for someone with green blood.

He left the glass on the counter, took the bottle, and escaped back to the zinnia bed, and drank himself sick.

And still, he could hear her voice whispering through him.

"Bereft. Desolate. Hollow."

"Know what you mean, pepperpot. Hell, yes. I know _exactly_ what you mean."


	15. Unsent Letter 5

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **T'Pol considers some amendments to her marriage contract - and whether she wants to negotiate her life.**_

 _ **This chapter is rated T for sexual references.**_

 _ **Unsent Letter #4**_

Koss -

I request a formal meeting to renegotiate and clarify the terms of our legal responsibilities to one another. Recent events in both our lives suggest that a logical re-evaluation of our arrangement, now that we have complied with the parental and cultural edicts to marry as we were Promised, is not only essential to the strength of our alliance, but may also prove personally agreeable to us both, according each of us the greatest ability to conduct our personal affairs in a manner in keeping with our disparate natures.

In summary, the terms I seek to discuss and amend are as follows:

Honor compels me to inform you that I will not consent to consummate our marriage contract until, and not other than, the occurrence of pon farr. As you are aware, I have chosen, and may again choose, to engage in sexual relations with another. I'll bear him no child; as per our current arrangement, any progeny I bear will carry your genetic inheritance.

I have no objection if you choose to engage in sexual relations with any partner you desire, so long as matters of health and discretion are respected.

I hereby request the same freedoms.

No - this is too formal, too accepting. It grants too much power over what is and should be my own life - and that's what I have come to Seleya for - to reclaim what is, and shall be, none other's but my own!

I won't ask for permission to be as I am; to share my body and my heart – yes, my _heart_! - as I will.


	16. The Seeker Thwarted

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 _ **T'Pol struggles to understand the realities of her joining to Koss, and finds her own memories suspect. Can she reconcile the two?**_

 _ **This chapter is rated T for sexual references.**_

 **The Seeker Thwarted**

T'Pol flung the device away. It bounced on the hard ground, and dust rose from the place it hit as it came to rest against a spur of obsidian. There was no logic resisting the necessary negotiations with Koss. There was less in risking the functionality of the equipment which would allow her to do so without being in his presence. She was certain that speaking with him personally would be an unwise decision; her emotional state concerning their joining was still far too chaotic. It was too great a risk that she might injure her husband, or cause destruction of his property.

"My husband." The words, of themselves, weren't strange. However, the thought of applying them to Koss was deeply agitating. She didn't know Koss, and had no interest in coming to know him. It was as well that he had another he preferred, because she wasn't certain that she would be able to fulfill her legal obligations as his wife.

Koss was her husband, by Vulcan law. She hadn't called the kal-if-fee. Her reasons were her own, but the law allowed her no other option. As she had been Promised, so she was now joined, in accordance with law older than memory, in a ceremony passed down, as the Elder had said, "from the time of the beginning, without change."

He had also said that it was the Vulcan heart, the Vulcan soul. Their way.

What did it say of her, that it wasn't her way? Was she now not Vulcan, in some fundamental way?

T'Pol knew the answer. She'd known it for over four years, now. The night she slipped through her open window, and away from the Consulate, she had made a choice that couldn't now be undone. Perhaps, if she hadn't heard the music, or followed it. Perhaps, if she'd remained outside, or not dared to meet the regard of the one human who seemed, from the first moment, to know her for what she was, and simply to accept it, and her, as she was in those moments.

But there was no point in such imaginary games. She had left the Consulate, followed the music, and encountered Trip. Her life had changed, and despite the challenges of that life, she found the changes agreeable. Particularly those that revolved around her t'hy'la.

When first he'd learned about Vulcan marriage customs, Trip had been reclined on her floor. She had expected him to argue most passionately to keep her here. But he had watched her with her candlelight reflecting in his vivid, emotive human eyes, and asked her, "Well, what do _you_ want to do?"

No one had ever asked that of her, on this world. It wasn't relevant, as desire wasn't logical, and, given freedom to exist unrestrained, was capable of returning Vulcan to the savagery of its youth. The planet and all life upon it had nearly been destroyed by unrestrained desires; therefore, the needs of the many must now outweigh the desires of the one.

Her own desires weren't relevant to the fulfillment of her marriage contract, and T'Pol had told this to the human, noticing that his eyes were blue, as Koss' were. But there was some manner of vibrancy in the engineer's gaze that was missing in Koss' level study. She was drawn into Trip's eyes, and, through them, to the man within. Koss seemed to keep her at a proper Vulcan distance; he was a stranger to her, as she was to him. It troubled her, to consider joining her life with his, when she knew nothing of his soul.

Commander Charles Tucker the Third had told her that it was _"very relevant"._ He hadn't tried to talk her into staying. He had only insisted that she consider what she wanted, and make herself a factor in her decision – a decision her own people would say had no room for her own opinion on the matter.

When he left, they were both angry. T'Pol had held to that emotion, feeling it had some value, but not understanding what it could be. It was only during the effort to rescue Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Mayweather, when she had seen the Captain succumbing to a similar emotion, that she had understood the value of what Commander Tucker had said to her. That she was able to express it in a manner that allowed Captain Archer to do what was necessary, not as a capitulation, but as a matter of choice to benefit his crew was enlightening, and suggested that there was much that could be gained if she continued to serve on _Enterprise_.

It wasn't a form of logic that would be readily accepted by her own species, but it echoed the flame, the nectar, and the blue-eyed human who had argued for her rights even when she herself had seen no choice but to surrender them.

T'Pol heard the call of a silverbird far above, and realized only when she lifted her gaze to search for the elusive avian that she had been staring at the PADD, motionless.

She had attempted to do what she wanted. She had brought Trip here, to her homeworld, as a precursor to marriage, if he wished to enter into such an arrangement with her. She had intended to tell him about the pon farr, about why Vulcan marriages were arranged in childhood. She had thought it fitting that she speak the most intimate secrets of her people here, on her homeworld, where he might understand, and where they would be granted a measure of privacy impossible on _Enterprise_ , and not generally honored on Earth, from what she had observed. She had hoped, however illogically, that Mother would see in him what she did, or at least see that he was profoundly valuable to her. She had hoped that he would be welcomed into her family.

And then there had been the letter from Koss, stating his intent to discuss the terms of their joining.

She had failed to take into account the inflexibility of Vulcan law and custom. She had lived among humans, served with them, absorbed some of their beliefs, because they suited her own nature in ways that Vulcan ways didn't. She had forgotten, and the reminder was legally binding. Even if she fled the planet, there could be no escape. How could there be, on a world where mating brought a madness that could so swiftly be turned to violence if thwarted? What matter that she was Awakened to a human, and had no desire now for any Vulcan mate?

T'Pol retrieved the PADD, and turned it on to assure herself that it was still functional. She began to search for the music files, but her eyes filled with too many tears to allow her to see more than a blur. She sank down to the ground, unable to formulate any other course of action.

She saw no logical point in negotiating with Koss, or in her continued existence. She longed for what she couldn't have, and must not seek out. She'd wounded her t'hy'la with her need for him. She didn't understand precisely what had driven him away, but she felt his pain, still, as an echoing harmonic to her own,

Perhaps it would have been far better if she had flung herself from the stone bridge, instead of abusing her equipment. But, again, it was Trip who had kept her from choosing suicide, and an end to this anguish – yes, another human word for an emotion a Vulcan was expected to deal with privately, with no need to name it for any other, or perhaps even herself.

Trip had chosen to live. Perhaps there had never truly been any doubt. T'Pol drew up her knees, with the PADD resting upon her thighs, and thought about the night in the jazz club, and _Enterprise's_ first mission, and many other incidents from the years she had known him, culminating in his standing for her at her wedding to another man, despite his own as-yet unspoken love for her.

Love. Yet another human word; one she'd never said to the man who had led her to contemplate what his species meant by the word which seemed to have a different definition depending on who was using it, and the context in which it was being used.

She thought she understood love, now.

It was what Trip had felt, when he stood there behind her, and allowed her to damn herself, because she had told him it was what she needed to do, what she'd _decided_ to do.

As she understood it, she loved Trip; loved him as she'd never loved another being. But her actions weren't loving, from his perspective. She'd known she was hurting him with her choice to marry Koss; she'd seen no way out, beyond the challenge. But the challenge couldn't end in anything other than death for Trip.

Should she have told him? Been wholly and unflinchingly honest with him, in those too-brief hours of the day she'd given to him, the day she hadn't told Koss what she had chosen?

No. She knew too much of human nature. He wouldn't have accepted the reality of what would happen; he would think that there was some way that he could engineer a solution where no one would get killed, and they could still be together. He didn't understand the implacable nature of Vulcan law; he wouldn't want to kill Koss, who had done nothing wrong. Humans possessed something else that Vulcans didn't; a sense of individual justice. It had at times proven disastrous, as it had with the Cogenitor which had named itself Charles in his honor. But she wouldn't have it result in his death on her behalf, when that death would accomplish nothing.

Koss would kill him. He had said that he would do what he must. He was Vulcan; there was no doubt that he meant what he said. So Trip would be dead, and she would still be Koss' wife.

But why? Why, when there was someone else that he wanted as his mate?

Was it only because he had never considered his own desires relevant? Didn't he know that she would have released him, at once? That she had released him, when she remained aboard Enterprise? Why hadn't he claimed his right to the one he preferred, and allowed her to do the same. All that would have been needed then was for her to call the challenge, and him to withdraw his claim rather than fighting for a woman he didn't want.

Koss had said he would want her to be happy. He'd chosen a human word; was it intentional? Couldn't he see that she could never be happy as his wife, because she was already another man's mate, and had no desire to be free of that circumstance?

Or had she imagined that there was another in Koss' soul? She had taken the first dose of trellium before the ceremony, because she wanted to feel Trip for as long as she was able, before the priest's actions erased the sense of him that had been growing more certain since they began neurporessure. Had it caused her to hallucinate, as it sometimes had before? Had she imagined what had passed during the joining – that the priest had included the others, so that there were four, and Trip was as much her husband, in some sense, as Koss was? That Koss' unknown companion was also part of what they shared?

She had been too distraught to speak to the priest after the wedding. She had stood beside Koss, felt Trip's pain as he left, and there had been a numbness within her that had taken all ability to act, until she was alone in her new room in Koss' home, and the shielded box of trellium offered her a path to feeling the man she wanted to be with, and perhaps of forcing the one she wanted not to keep his distance.

Trip's pain had blended with hers, twisted, become emotion that consumed her. She remembered little, after that, except for the knowledge that mating with Trip was necessary. For them both. For her survival.

What did it mean that she would want Trip, when she had been married to Koss? She wasn't Burning; she shouldn't need to mate with anyone. And yet, from the first time she had given in to her need for him, it had only intensified. She didn't understand. She might ask Mother, but Mother's prejudices made it impossible to address such intimate topics.

Her mind turned to the priest once more. Surely, he would know what it was that he had done, and what had motivated that decision. Was it a thing commonly done, but, as so much in Vulcan culture, not spoken of? Was it an allowance which accepted what was, and which she could use to help Trip understand that he'd done nothing wrong in helping her to meet his needs.

Had it occurred at all, or was it simply a delusion she was using to justify the course of action that had led to her seduction of her human lover?

Was she now V'Tosh Katur, a Vulcan without logic? Perhaps. She could discern no logic now in the actions she had taken following her marriage. She was certain she remembered being willing to kill Koss for not revealing that he preferred some other, that she had wanted to tear him apart with her own bare hands, eliminate him, and, thereby, liberate herself from what she had committed to.

There could be no logic in that. She hadn't been forced; not precisely. As she had told Trip, it had been her decision. That she had seen no viable alternative made it no less true.

She toppled over to her side, and lay there, allowing the thoughts to come as they would, to circle in a way that had been dizzying, when she first felt the mind of a human called Trip -

Had she felt his mind? Did she, now? Did she feel, or only imagine, that he was thinking of her, that he was somehow as hollowed and bereft inside as she was?

Was it only her familiarity with his voice, his face, his manner of speaking, that made it seem as though he whispered into her soul?

"Know what you mean, pepperpot. Hell, yes. I know _exactly_ what you mean."

When would she stop imagining that she could hear him; feel his pain blending with her own? When would she lose this certainty that she had made the largest error of her life; larger than allowing Tolaris to attempt a mind-meld with her, even more critical than her panicked shooting of the fugitive Jossen before she was certain that he carried a weapon?

"I'm still here," she whispered to that echo of him that lingered within her. But, if he was there, if it was something other than her own imagination, he didn't respond to her.

She couldn't blame him for that.

T'Pol listened until exhaustion brought sleep, there on the sands. In sleep, she was able to be with Trip.

 _He was sitting on the ground, amid flowers and cultivated earth. He was holding something in his hand_ _s_ _, and he was crying. She focused on what he held; there seemed to be something dangerous in it, some part of him that felt to her as she had felt when she knew she must marry Koss._

Alcohol. He was drinking, as he had when his sister was still among the missing, but when the hope that she might be discovered alive was fading into the certainty that she wouldn't be. It had been a destructive cycle. She wasn't sure whether he would have regained his balance and sobriety if she hadn't intervened.

 _She couldn't help him now. She probed gently at his thoughts, seeking to understand the nature of the threat to her mate._

" _Wish I didn't have anyone here who loves me. Wish I could just climb into this damned bottle of tequila, and let myself drown in it...what the hell am I gonna do?"_

Tequila? She had a memory from long ago. He'd said a shot was enough, and not one drop more. She hadn't known what a 'shot' was, then, but years of living among humans had answered that question. It was a small amount; and she had never seen him exceed it. Until now.

 _Now, he was drinking directly from a bottle that was half full, and he was drinking copiously, with no apparent regard for his own well-being._

She had done this to him.

" _Oh, no, you didn't. Did this to myself; you don't get to take the credit this time. Now, go away. I can't gt over you if you keep on coming back into my head. And I gotta get over you, T'Pol. I can't live like this. I can't be wanting to jump back in bed with another man's wife. Doesn't matter how much I love you. You're his wife, damn it. You want to take up residence in someone's head, go play in his, before I beg you to move everything you own in here, and we can just go crazy together, pretending that this is what's right."_

"It is right." She was utterly certain on that point.

" _No, it isn't. You're married to Koss, T'Pol. Doesn't matter why. You and I – we can't do this anymore. Not this, and not 'exploring sexuality', either. We've gotta find a way to be just friends, or, if we can't, how to work together without falling all over each other. Because that would kill me faster than this tequila will. Please, get the hell out of my head, and go back to being the token Vulcan. Stop doing pretty things with your hair; cut your nails short again, put that damned ugly uniform back on. Isn't going to hide all that sexiness going on underneath, but just maybe I can pretend we've gone back in time, and I don't know you at all, and have no idea what a beautiful, passionate woman you really are."_

 _There was a choking sob, then, "Please, pepperpot. I love you, and I can't take this. Not anymore; not when you're his wife."_

He pushed her away, with anger and sorrow. His pain sent her reeling back into wakefulness; where she saw that a shelter had been made, and there was a silent watcher to tend her.  
"Am I so far compromised?"

"You have been much troubled, Seeker." The man sat in the corner. "I have been instructed to meet any need you may have."

It was a formal response; it meant that she could ask anything, and have it granted, even to mating, if that was her wish.

Mate with this man that she knew not?

Mate with Koss?

No. She couldn't. She had no desire for either of them. She wanted only Trip, only to be with him. Not only for mating, or making love. She wanted to be with him, in every moment, simply to share in his living.

"Never and always touching and touched." It broke from her in a whisper.

"If that is your wish, Seeker."

"No. It's not. Not with thee, watcher. I wish to speak to the priest who conducted my marriage ceremony."

"That isn't possible, Seeker." The man's voice was unchanged, but his posture had gained a measure of wariness, as though he anticipated a need to move quickly. Her skill in combat arts was apparently well known among her people.

"You said that you were instructed to meet any need I may have, watcher. I have a great need to speak to the priest who joined me to Koss."

"I understand your need, Seeker, but I can do nothing to answer it. Dalin, the priest who officiated at your joining, died two days ago."

"No!" Was it she who made that raw and broken yell? It must have been, for there was no other here, beyond them. "I had great need of his counsel."

"I can do nothing to assist you, Seeker. Dalin is dead; his counsel is gone with him."

Her mind was whirling, considering possibilities, rejecting them, until - "Did Dalin make any personal record of my joining to Koss? There is something I must know; perhaps he would have written on it, or created a file I might access."

It was a violation of the deceased priest's privacy; she was breaching protocol to ask, but the watcher said nothing to that. "Dalin was not given to personal recording of public events, Seeker, and all of his personal records were burned, as he instructed, upon his death."

"Then there is no way that I might learn what it is that I seek."

It wasn't a question, and the watcher didn't tender a response. There would be no logic in it. She must find acceptance - of the questions that would remain unanswered, and the fact of her marriage.

T'Pol sent the watcher in search of a candle, and, when it was lit before her, she stared at it, through her tears, and failed utterly to find a meditative state, or the needed acceptance.


	17. Unsent Letter 6

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 ** _Trip tries to reconcile his contradictory feelings about T'Pol's marriage and what it means for them both in another letter to her - but decides not to send it, after all..._**

 _ **This is a solid T rating for alcohol use and sexual themes.**_

 **Unsent Letter #6**

T'Pol -

Sorry I ran out on you like that. I should've stayed. Should've made damned sure you were all right before I left you all alone in your bed, wanting me. I could say I was too drunk to know what I was doing, but that would be a lie.

The truth is, you terrified me, pepperpot. It was like – like you were never going to get enough, like you got swallowed up by your "more, more, _more_ ," and like you wanted me to get swallowed up _with_ you. And I couldn't let you do that.

It's not that I didn't want to, exactly. I mean, if I'm going to lose my mind with someone, there's no one but you I'd want to go over the edge with. I hope you know that.

But something was not right back there. Something happened to you, and I knew you were going to regret it when you got hold of yourself again. I promised to protect you from that part of yourself, and I let you down. I know my leaving wasn't the best idea, especially while you were asleep, but I had to, T'Pol. For both of us – no, all of us, because, much as I hate to admit it, Koss is part of the equation, now.

He seems like a fine, upstanding Vulcan. Seems like just the type to make you a good husband. I noticed he's got blue eyes, like me - does that make it easier for you to fool yourself, or is one set just the same as another, to you? Does it even matter?

Sorry. I guess you could say my feelings are still mighty churned up where you're concerned. I kind of wonder what it is that you ever saw in me. You've never said, you know. Maybe you didn't know that it would matter to me. But it does.

I know it's wrong, and not at all logical, but I want you to want me more than you want him. Even knowing that means you couldn't be as happy with him as with me, I still want that. I'm not proud of it – but I love you. I keep trying to make myself hate you, or just not give a damn, but love doesn't work like that, at least not for me.

The hell of it is, I know you wanted me – but I'll never really know if you maybe loved me a little bit, too. I know, I know. Love isn't logical. It sure as hell doesn't seem to be very important at all in Vulcan marriages. And, to add to the illogic, knowing you loved me too would only make all this worse, because then I couldn't keep telling myself that, even though I'm miserable enough to have damned near pickled my liver, you can go on about your life, content. Surak forbid you be happy….

But if you do love me, or if you did...that means you're suffering, too. That maybe we're in this together, still, in some twisted, messed-up kind of way. That maybe those days in bed were your way of saying goodbye, and trying to store up a little more against the jagged gaping holes in our souls where we were ripped apart.

I hope that's true, and I hope it isn't. Pepperpot, did I walk away too soon? If I'd waited for you to wake up, come back to your senses, could you have explained all this so it made sense? Or are you just as lost as I am, trying to figure out what the hell happened? Trying to figure out how to live with it? Trying to figure out if you really want to be living at all?

I should have stayed with you, at least till I knew you were OK. That's what a gentleman does when he's put a lady in a compromising position. Instead, I got out of there as fast as I could and I left you to deal with your mother – and I did that even knowing that things are pretty strained between you two, because of me.

I hope you can be happy, pepperpot. I hope Koss can see what an amazing woman he lucked into, and that, when he looks into your eyes, he sees what I see? Will you show him how funny you can be? How scared and vulnerable? How adorable? How stubborn and wrongheaded and unexpectedly kind? Will you be as jealous with him? Damn, will you be as sensual and irresistible to him as you are to me?

I want him to see those parts of you, and I don't. I want to keep you all for myself, but I can't.

I remember when you were first telling me about this whole marriage thing. You said it was expected that you would eventually 'develop an affection' for one another. Will you? Is that what you did with me? 'Developed an affection'?

What the hell _were_ we, there, at the end, T'Pol? Were we going where I thought we were, or was it all in my head, or my heart? Can a Vulcan love the way humans can?

Why do I feel like you do love me the way I love you - well, not the same, but the same, or at least with the same intent and intensity? Damn, that's a convoluted thought, but I don't have a better way to put it. Why do I feel like you're hurting as much as I am? Or maybe more, because I've got Mom and Dad, and, believe it or not, Malcolm?

I was wrong before, wasn't I? You didn't take the trellium and try to seduce me, did you? No, I'm almost sure it wasn't like that. I think the trellium was the same to you as the Andorian ale was for me. A way to forget, numb the pain, get a few hours' peace.

But you can get killed by that stuff a hell of a lot faster than I can drink myself to death, T'Pol. I still have your note. Please be careful. I didn't tell your mom; I know how you feel about privacy. But someone should know; someone you can trust to keep an eye on you, help you look out for trouble.

Have you told Koss about your addiction? About how trapped you are? What it does to you? Are you going to? Pepperpot, I hate that I'm not there with you. That I left you like that, hurt, high and confused- needing me...the way I need you.

 _Do_ you need me, _t'hy'la_? Am I still that, to you? _Can_ I be, with you married to him?

Did you want this, all along? A neat and tidy Vulcan life? No damned chaotic human messing everything up? Everything simple, measured out, _logical_?

No, I can't think you did. Maybe once, before you came to _Enterprise_. Before Fusion – but then, why would you even have gone there if you wanted the complete Vulcan package? But if you ever did, I'm sure you don't now. I've watched you - this last year's been seven kinds of hell and more, for all of us - but you were really coming into yourself. Not turning human - just - just giving yourself permission to be exactly who you are. I know all these emotions you can't control anymore scare you, make you real nervous – 'agitated', as you used to say. But they're part of you, now. I don't think you can hide from them, even on Vulcan.

I hope you come home. Even if all we are is friends, now. Even if we can't even figure out a way to be _that_ much.

Because I think you _need_ us, T'Pol. I think you fit us now, and we fit you, better than Vulcan can. We were there when you broke. We all broke, too, and we won't hold it against you. We know your strengths - and damn, pepperpot, you've the strongest person I've ever met. But we also know that you're vulnerable, and how. We can protect you from yourself, and you can do that for _us_ , too.

It's a symbiotic relationship. Mutual benefit.

But only if you're _here_ , T'Pol. We can only support each other if you don't disappear into the sands.

I don't know how I'm goin' to handle you being here, and married to _him_ \- but I know I'll do my damndest to be OK with it. Might not be easy, but Enterprise is your _home_ , as much as it is mine, and - well, I'll figure something out.

I don't know whether I should send this letter or not. Can't remember if I sent you anything before this- I've been - well, I haven't exactly stopped drinkin' yet, and, without you to pick me up off the deck plating - things are all kinda blurry…but don't worry about me. I'm with Mom and Dad; they're looking after me, keeping me safe while I figure out how to pick up the pieces and put them into something that resembles a Chief Engineer. My plan is to fake it till I make it.

I hope you're somewhere safe, where you can do the same. I hope you come back. I can't imagine never seeing you again, smelling you again, holding you – no. Wrong direction, Tucker. Again.

Maybe I'd better just get rid of this -


	18. Learning How to Live Again

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 ** _Still drinking, and still struggling to cope with T'Pol's marriage and its aftermath, Trip tries a new strategy._**

 _ **This is T rated for alcohol use and sexual themes.**_

 **Learning How to Live Again**

Trip sat on his bed, cross-legged, wishing he could lock his vertebrae the way she could, so he'd be as ramrod straight doing this as she was. But he couldn't; he wasn't Vulcan.

If he only could have been, then maybe…

"Illogical. If you had been Vulcan, you wouldn't be you."

He wished to hell it wasn't just his imagination – his damned human imagination that went along with this newfound ability to cut and run at the first sign of Vulcan trouble, without any thought at all to what that might do to her, even though he knew too well by now that it would damned well have an effect, and probably not a good one.

Trip eyed the ever-present bottle and glass on the tray in front of him, then sighed and poured. Breathing was harder than drinking, right now. Bailing again – on himself, this time. But then, unlike a certain bereft Vulcan, he damned well deserved it.

He gulped, happy for the burning, and the taste. At first, he used it to numb himself. Now it was penance, plain and simple. Some twisted form of atonement, like something that came out of one of those damned anomaly fields.

She depended on him in ways he didn't really understand. And he kept letting her down.

"Breathe." The Vulcan echo in his head was every bit as stubborn as the real deal. She had as little tolerance for bullshit, too, as far as Trip could tell. Funny that she didn't line him out over the tequila. Or maybe not so funny.

He'd had a different dream last night. T'Pol, in the wreckage of some building that looked like he should be able to place it. She was talking to someone, and clutching a hypo and too damned many vials of trellium – D.

He didn't want to remember that dream. Instead, he picked up Lizzie's little claddagh ring. He'd cleaned it all up, and Mom had given him a pretty silver box he'd made for her in high school metalworking, way back when. He hadn't asked himself why he wanted to keep it like that, with the little magnetic coin T'Pol had slipped into his hand at the wedding. Truth was, though, he didn't need to ask, when his heart and soul already knew the answer.

And that circled him right back to that dream…

"Bereft. Desolate. Hollow. But I can fill myself with this. I can kill myself with this."She said it calmly, as though giving a status report. Nothing to the way it had shivered down his spine.

"Just another nightmare, Tucker. And a well-deserved guilty conscience."

He wasn't very convincing. He didn't believe himself for a second. His guilty conscience didn't exist in a vacuum. He had plenty of reason to feel that way, and he knew it. Even if T'Pol got hold of herself, let go of that damned blue-veined rock, there wasn't any doubt at all that he'd hurt her, and that she hadn't been in any shape to be left on her own recognizance. Neither had he been, either, truth be told, but he'd promised her only a couple of weeks before that he'd be there to help her through times like this.

A promise he'd damned well broken by bailing the very next time she needed him. And not just bailing from her; bailing off the whole damned _planet_. Real damned _gentlemanly_ of him, wasn't it?

And still, he kept the ring and the coin in the box, as though he had any right at all to imagine a day when he could give them both to her, because she and Koss realized this parental machination was a huge mistake, and nothing good could ever come of it, and it just might destroy one of them.

If Koss knew that, would he still want to be T'Pol's husband?

Was it Koss she'd been talking to, in that wrecked building?

"It was just a dream."He still didn't believe himself. Why should he? He'd already proven that he wasn't trustworthy.

Trip reached into his pocket, and pulled out the little igniter he'd asked Dad to pick up the last time he and Mom had gone into town. He'd made Mom a sketch or two, and she'd found him a thick, tall pillar candle. He'd made the holder himself, two days ago, but he hadn't been brave enough to light it, yet. A coward over a candle; no wonder he couldn't handle the fiery desire of a certain Vulcan lover.

.He'd thought of getting something different, just asking Mom to bring something that tickled her fancy, but, in the end, he'd realized he wanted one that would remind him of those candlelit evenings of neuropressure and conversation, when all they had to worry about was who was gossiping about them, whether she'd like fresh peaches, whether his giggling like a girl the first time she'd tickled his feet was worse than what they had to smell like to her nose, and how the hell he was going to hide the powerful and sometimes very physical effect she had on him, especially once they'd started on the advanced poses.

"Not just that, Tucker. There were also those guys who wanted to wipe out your entire species, remember them?"

But that wasn't really part of those quietly magical times being all alone, touching and being touched by T'Pol, growing closer to her, the way she'd gradually opened up to him, like a lovely desert blossom only he ever got to see…

Intoxicating. Way worse than tequila.

And what the hell was he going to do about that, if she came back?

Trip had no damned idea what the hell he was supposed to do about it. And he needed to figure that out, because, until he did, the tequila wasn't going anywhere, and neither was he. It was all well and good to make candle holders, putter around in the gardens, fix up Dad's lawn equipment and tune up the two aircars. But he had a job to go back to, and he really needed to decide whether he was up for it, or whether he needed to tell Jon that he was going to have to find a new Chief Engineer.

"Can't work if I'm always drunk." He'd seen some of that, while he was paying his dues on the intrastellar run, biding his time for a posting on one of those sweet Warp Five ships. It never turned out well. Engineering was a matter of details, and intuition, and a deep understanding of the machinery and the physics that made it function. No place to have dulled senses and addled wits, and people had died because some engineers and their captains didn't seem to know that.

He wasn't going to make _that_ mess. Maybe every one that could be made with an intoxicating Vulcan woman, but not _that_ one.

"One problem at a time." Soft, but tense. She'd been worried when she said it. Maybe most people wouldn't have caught that, but he had no doubt. Worried, and maybe a little overwhelmed. Depending on him.

She'd been depending on him when he left her there in her bed, asleep, and Trip didn't need anyone else to tell him that he'd let her down, big time. She'd wanted to mate "more, more, _more_ ", and he'd promised her that they would. And then he'd gotten scared – by the bad dreams, or just by how primal and out-of-control her desire was? Were all Vulcans like this, or was it all the trellium that had done it?

But that didn't really matter. Truth was, whatever the reason, she had needed him. Not wanted, _needed_. It had been written in everything she'd done. He could hear it in every panting breath she'd taken, from the time she yanked that huge wooden gate from its hinges and crashed through the door to get at him.

And he'd bailed on her, because of his damned _morals_. _Human_ morals that had no place on her world.

But the planet they were on didn't change the fact that she was married. His eyes went back to the ring and the coin. He wanted to hold them, and he wanted to snap that box closed, take it out into the woods, and fling it as far as he could out into the tangle of azaelas.

"You need to learn to objectify other cultures so that you know when to interfere, and when not to." He'd thought she was so damned superior and sanctimonious when she'd said that; he was still smarting over how absolutely not like his Little Miss Pointed Ears Under That Cowl she was, in reality. He wanted her to give him some sign that she remembered him, an acknowledgment of what they'd shared at Fusion, so he didn't think he was nut for thinking that there was somenthing. Maybe some chink in that damned Vulcan armor she was wearing that would give him something to build on, because eight days could go by mighty fast, even with a day or two added in for detours to rescue kidnapped Klingons.

She'd come out with that line, and Trip decided it was just another pointless"my species is better than your species" lecture, and proceeded to ignore her directive for the next year or two.

But she'd been right. Charles had proven that.

He certainly hadn't been objectifying her culture when she dragged him into her bed. He'd gone, all right – damn it, there probably wasn't an unattached heterosexual man anywhere who could have resisted her, thrusting her fingers into that flame, covered in sweat, panting, and smelling like -

"Uh-uh. Gotta stop going back to that. Mind on the problem, Mister Tucker, not the delicious details."

If he was going to keep his mind from wandering back into her, he needed to focus. He'd better stop playing with this igniter as though he could ignore his problems and still be a productive member of society. He poured two fingers of tequila; hating the taste, and hating the implications even more.

"Medicinal value," he said, and downed it.

Too much like that dream.

"I can fill myself with this. I can kill myself with this."

Is that what he was trying to do here? Here, at Mom and Dad's new house, the one they'd moved to after Lizzie died, because they'd lost their old home? Wasn't that bailing on them, the same way he'd bailed on T'Pol? When the hell was he going to stop acting like a sulky little kid who hadn't gotten his way, and start acting like the grown man he was purported to be?

Trip got up and went slowly to the shelf where he'd set up the candle under the sprinkler system, in case he was too drunk to remember to put it out. He flicked the igniter a time or two, with the feeling that, once he lit it, something was going to change, and there could be no going back to this moment.

Was he ready for a change?

"Better than takin' a swan dive," he said, and lit the candle. He took a deep breath, remembering the way candlelight danced with the golden and green flecks in her hazel eyes, wishing he had her here – or, better yet, they were both back on _Enterprise_ , in the smooth sailing that ought to have been the reward for that year of hell.

He went back to the bed and his cross-legged pose. He closed his eyes, breathing the way she'd shown him before they began the facial postures. When he opened them, he was almost surprised to see that she wasn't sitting there in front of him, in her pretty blue pajamas that seemed as though they were designed to decorate more than conceal.

But no T'Pol. He'd left her behind, snuck out like a thief in the night, abandoned her to whatever she had to deal with all alone.

He knew she was addicted to trellium; she always would be, unless Phlox found some way to counteract the damage. But what if she was also addicted to _him_? What if he'd made her face up to her marriage, the aftermath of her binge, and losing him, all at the same time, and all alone, because no one else had any real idea what she was dealing with.

Damn, damn, damn. He had been so scared about her "more, more, _mores",_ the ferocity of her passion, that he'd just run off. If he remembered through the booze haze he'd been in, he really didn't even give T'Les a chance to say anything before he'd lit out of there, and contacted the only other person he knew on Vulcan – T'Pol's new husband.

Had he tried to apologize to Koss? Or was that another dream?

Did it even matter? He seemed to recall that Koss had said something like, "The cause was sufficient," and that he was so incredibly calm that he, like a damned fool impetuous human who didn't think fucking the man's newlywed wife for what had to have been days was bad enough, had blurted out something along the lines of, "Why the hell'd you marry her?"

And that's when Kov had walked in, totally blowing Trip away. It was Kov who'd gotten him back here to Earth while Trip turned into a puddle of booze and tears in an incredibly comfortable bunk. He didn't even think he'd thanked his old friend, or asked him how the hell he ended up at T'Pol's husband's house right when Trip needed him.

Rude, on top of everything else. That was no way to treat a friend he might never see again – if it had really happened that way. There'd been a lot of booze, and he'd stopped counting long before T'Pol showed up and shattered his concept of who he was and what he was willing to do.

"One problem at a time."

"Sometimes I wish to hell you'd shut up," he muttered, sighing and pouring himself another."But not this time. You make good sense." He focused on the flame as he emptied the glass. He hardly even felt the burn anymore. "So tell me, Miss Points'N'Logic, what the hell I'm supposed to fix first, when it's _all_ gone to hell?"

"Breathe."

It was almost like she could hear him, and they were having a conversation. Or like he'd gotten to know her so well, that he just knew what she'd say in this situation. Either way, it was a sharp-edged comfort to know that it didn't seem like she was going anywhere. And, somewhere along the line, maybe he'd learned a thing or two about how to listen to a Vulcan.

"Breathe, eh?" That's what Mom had said, too, when he asked her how she got through these days without Lizzie, knowing Lizzie wasn't ever going to come back. T'Pol had more in common with Mom than he'd realized until he came home. That was comforting, and a little disturbing, too. Little things Mom did – things she'd always done – were triggering all kinds of T'Pol-memories, and each one was a new slice in his soul, reminding him of just how much he'd thrown away.

"Breathe, Trip. Fill yourself with it."

He heard the echo of that damned dream again, taunting him with his guilt. His fault she was bereft, hollow, desolate. His fault she wanted trellium to fill herself, to kill herself. Even if it was a dream, it was still his fault.

And this wasn't getting him anywhere.

"Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."

He put his focus on the flame, and did what he told himself, letting his voice be his guide, making a mantra of it. "Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."

"Things must not be any better, if you're needing to remind yourself to do that."

Trip jumped his eyes jolting open to the sight of Malcolm lounging in his doorway, watching him. Instinctively, without asking himself why, he snapped closed the lid of the ring box, palming in into his lap. He could feel Malcolm following the motion, damn him. "Don't ask,"Trip said, or rather growled, and was a little embarrassed by the hardness in his voice.

"I didn't come to question you, Trip. Not my business. I have news, but if this isn't a good time..." He gestured around the room. "I didn't know you meditated."

"I don't. But I need to change _something_ , if I'm going to get any answers. The tequila doesn't do a damned thing to help me sort this all out. I figured, since it works for _her_ \- "

"From what you've said, I don't think I'd assume that it's all that effective for her, either, of late."

"I see your point. Maybe – maybe I just _miss_ her, Malcolm, okay?" He swiped at his eyes, wishing to hell the hurt wasn't so damned obvious.

"Okay. Might be she misses you, too. But you still haven't said if it's a good time for a chat."Malcolm stayed where he was; Trip was grateful for his acceptance of his changed circumstances. He'd sure hate for Hoshi or Travis – or even Jon, to see him like this.

Last time he'd gone on a bender, T'Pol had scooped him up off the deck plating, and taken care of him with healing tenderness.

"Trip?"

"Huh?"Damn. Malcolm. He'd forgotten he was here already. He could blame it on the tequila, but he'd never believe himself.

"Should I go?"

"No, no. Fell free to stay, as long as you don't expect me to be good company. I'm not even enjoying talking to myself, these days. I think I've got another glass here -"

"Thanks." Malcolm pulled up a chair, and accepted the glass Trip handed him. "Mind if I pour?"

"Help yourself. I've got enough, for now."He passed over the tequila, too.

"Good to hear you say that. It was pretty touch-and-go, for a while."Malcolm splashed a finger's worth into the bottom of the glass, then swirled it around without drinking any.

"Still is, Malcolm. Ever feel like your whole world's come undone, and you don't even know who you are, anymore? Like you've got to get back to the beginning, somehow, before it all came off the rails, and figure out how to put it back together some way you can live with?"

"Matter of fact." Malcolm didn't say anything else; he was better at that stiff-upper-lip thing than anyone Trip had ever met – except T'Pol. And her lips, stiff or otherwise, were a whole lot prettier.

"Thing is," he said, as much to distract himself as for any other reason. "I don't know _where_ this went off the rails, or what the hell I'm supposed to do to put it back on track. I can't think it's the getting involved with her; we had some damned good times even before we surrendered to what was there all along, and I've never enjoyed working and bashing heads with anyone half as much as I do her. She challenges me, you know, in ways that make me a better engineer, a better man – a better human. Kinda ironic, that a Vulcan would be the first one in my life I can really say that about – but it's true. I can't think it's a mistake, or an accident, that the two of us fit together so well."

" _Enterprise_ wouldn't have succeeded if you didn't, and we wouldn't be sitting here now, on Earth. But maybe taking it to a physical level -"

"I _needed_ the neuropressure, Malcolm. Never told anyone but her, but I was having horrific nightmares about Lizzie every time I closed my eyes. If not for T'Pol, I would've been a gibbering idiot before we got anywhere near the first sphere, let alone the weapon. And it was the neuropressure that did it. All the walls and barriers we had kind of melted away. I lied when I said it wasn't intimate, Malcolm. Truth is, it was _very_ intimate, and I honestly think I miss sharing those moments and those conversations with her way more than I do the sex, if you can believe that."

"Given that the lady is a Vulcan, I suspect there's a lot of merit to that position."

"You've got no idea in hell what you're talking about." Trip was about to launch into a detailed description of just what it was like to make love with T'Pol, the way her desires could devour her, gobbling him up in the process. Then he noticed the way the Tactical Officer leaned forward, his eyes intent. Hell, his _ears_ damned near perked up, and Trip felt the trap closing just in time to stumble out of the way of its snapping jaws. "You've got _no_ idea, and _I'm_ not going to be the one to enlighten you. You want to know what it's like to mate with a Vulcan woman, go find one who'll have your sorry ass, and find out for yourself. As for me an' her, though – I'm gonna drop it, and since it's my room and my booze, so are you."

"So noted." Malcolm lifted his glass a bit. "To dropping it."

"I'll drink to that," Trip said, took up the bottle and poured sloppily, so that he could suit words with appropriate action. "Now, are you going to tell me your news, or keep fishing for gossip you're not going to get?"

"I do have news. The Captain's been trying to reach you. You- and T'Pol, too."

"Me an' her?" Why the hell did it still feel so good to think of them as a team? They _weren't_ a team, not anymore. She might not even come back to _Enterprise_ , after the way he'd abandoned her, and, every time he thought about sending her a letter to explain, he just got tangled up in his own feelings and memories, and ended up deleting it. "Why us?"

"Well, my guess is that he sent you both to Vulcan, and neither of you have made any effort to contact him since."

"She hasn't?" He wondered what that meant. Was she still lost in the trellium? Damn, had he made it so she had nothing to stop for? He hadn't seen those Vulcans on the _Seleya_ , but Jon and Malcolm had described them to him, and he'd held her through more than one night terror about that mission...was she going to end up like them, because of _him_? It was him who first exposed her, and him who didn't have a clue what she was doing to herself even when he'd seen her inject that poison, and him who stirred up all those new emotions to the point where she had no idea how to cope with them…

Had he signed her death warrant, by leaving her asleep and alone?

Why the hell hadn't he thought of this sooner, before he ran away? Why hadn't he just stuck around so she could tell him what she needed to be okay with this damned marriage that he knew had been foisted off on her?

"A credit for your thoughts."

Trip shook his head. "You don't want 'em. They just keep spinning in circles. Questions. No answers."

"Maybe you should try getting in touch with her." Malcolm's voice was soft, and he studied his tequila, before taking a small sip. "You know, see if you can find any answers together."

"There's no _together_ anymore, Malcolm. Not with _her_. I thought we agreed to drop it." He finished off what was in his glass, debated more, and decided against it. "You going to tell me what the Cap'n wants with us?"

"He hasn't said, and he's not exactly easy to find these days, himself. He's not staying at his place, and he hasn't said where he is sleeping. All I know is that he asked me to 'put out some feelers, see if you can discreetly learn where the hell my second and third command are.' He also said that T'Pol got offered a commission before she left, and I haven't heard a word yet on whether she's going to take it, or whether I'm going to need a new Science Officer."

Trip exhaled. It didn't sound like Jon suspected there had been anything between them. He wondered why he didn't want to tell his best friend. Maybe it was just stupidity, but he didn't want to talk about _any_ of this with the boss. He didn't know if T'Pol would, but it didn't seem likely, since she was so damned closed-mouthed about everything all the time, anyway. Him telling Jon would out her, and could potentially get them both in trouble for fraternization, even if she wasn't Starfleet. She _was_ his immediate chain-of-command superior; so blabbing about their mutual bedroom escapades might mean that commission offer would be withdrawn. Last he'd known, she was thinking of accepting it. Maybe she wouldn't now, but he sure as hell didn't want it to be because she didn't have the chance on account of him opening his big mouth in front of the wrong people.

"Malcolm, you haven't – well, _told_ him anything, have you? Told _anyone_ what I told you about – well, about me an' her?"

"No. I like a good story, but when my friends are hurting, it stops being gossip." Just when he thought he had Malcolm figured, that he was nothing but a lone wolf at the fringes of the pack, he went and did something decent and honorable like that.

"I appreciate that. She might want the commission; I don't know. I do know it would be a hell of a shame for her to lose it over – well, whatever the hell you'd call what happened between us."

"Are you going to contact the Captain, Trip, or should I say that I've got no information on your whereabouts?"

"I dunno." He poured again. "I honestly don't know how useful I'd be now, or if I _should_ come back. Gotta lay off this stuff, first. I know that much, anyway. But for the rest – I just don't know. I haven't thought beyond the next flower bed or small engine repair in almost a week, and the thought of being the guy in charge of a warp engine – well, right now that scares the _hell_ out of me."

"Right now, it should." Malcolm set his glass down on the bedside table; he'd only had half its contents. "But this is a temporary situation."

"Is it? How the hell can you be so damned sure, when I don't have the faintest idea, myself?"

"I saw you when you got back from Vulcan. Your friend there, the portly fellow, had to half carry you aboard. You'd done an awfully good job of decorating his clothes for him, and you could barely say two coherent words together. Begged to be set down in the swamps, where you "hoped ta hell a gator'll make dinner outta me." Sat down on the transporter pad, because you couldn't keep your balance upright." Malcolm reached a hand to his shoulder; it reminded him of the way T'Pol had comforted him when he lost it over Lizzie and Ensign Taylor. He couldn't hold Malcolm's hand, though.

"Was I really that bad?"

"I haven't even gotten into the _smell_ of you. You've come a long way, Trip, and you're not the kind to wallow in self-pity any longer than necessary. It hasn't been easy for the Captain, either, this last year. Might be he needs to hear from you."

"I guess I did kind of forget about everyone else but me an' her and her new husband."

"Well, you've been the one everyone turned to for a long time, Trip. I think you were due a shore leave from that, but I do believe the Captain would benefit from some sign of life from your direction, whether T'Pol is a subject of discussion, or not."

"Not. _Definitely_ not. What the hell would I even _say_ , when I can't talk about it myself?" But it occurred to him that Jon would ask, and he'd be in no position, these days, to even make the attempt at a convincing lie. What he needed was a cover story – something that would explain why he went silent, and why he hadn't stayed on Vulcan with T'Pol. He needed time to practice it, and make sure he'd covered all the angles, with ready answers that satisfied without saying too much. Answers he could spit out without thinking about it too hard; because he wasn't so good at thinking these days. Nothing personal. He remembered an old movie quip. Just the facts. Nothing else.

"Tell you what. Can you stay around for an hour or two, maybe charm my Mom and Dad some more with stories of all the mistakes I've made? They really liked that one about me getting knocked up. Dad's been teasing me all week about him not getting to meet his 'grandlizard'. Before I leave here, I gotta scrape together enough happiness to at least give him one laugh for that one."

"I've got nowhere else to be."

"All right then. I'll pull together some kind of message for him. Just please don't tell him where I am; not yet. I don't want him to see me like – well, like this."

"If I had a beard that scruffy, I wouldn't want him to see me, either. Malcolm gave Trip a penetrating look out of those laser-focus eyes of his, and got up. "Till later, then," he said. "I'll close the door on my way out."

Trip sat there for a while, running through possibilities in his head until he realized that he needed to treat this like an engineering problem. Too many variables – things he needed to say, things he couldn't say, things that might buy T'Pol some time to decide what she wanted to do, in case she needed it. It wasn't much to give her – definitely too little and way too late, at this point – but it was something, and, right now, that's all he had.

He grabbed up his old school PADD – it looked obsolete, but he'd taken the time to update it this week, and it would do till he got back to _Enterprise._ He brought up a standard flow chart, and started setting it up with variables, looking for a path that could make sure he didn't omit anything critical, and didn't give away anything that was too sensitive, or, really, none of his damned business.

Finally, he was ready for a test run. Remembering what Malcolm had said about his beard, he kept it to a voice message with the _Enterprise_ logo for a graphic tag.

"Hey, Cap'n -

Sorry I was out of touch for a while. There's so much to see on Vulcan that I never even thought about calling you from there. Spent a few days with T'Pol and her mom, who is a lot what you might expect T'Pol's mom to be like.

I got to see some of the sights, then T'Pol had - family business to take care of, so I came on back. Suppose maybe I should have called you, but it's been so long since I had time to just slow down and smell the roses….

I guess I kind of put everything out of my mind and just tried to figure out who I am after all we've been through. Probably no secret to you, or anyone else, that I was nursing a helluva rage against the Xindi, and that wasn't good for me or anyone around me.

I think I'm learning how to live again without holding onto that. I hope I am, anyway. Hate can eat away at a man's soul. It's not pretty, believe me, and I'm glad you missed it.

I need a little more time, Jon. Want to make sure I'm fit for duty and ready for action before I come back. I also want to find my smile again, and figure out how to let go once and for all of all that baggage I've been carrying around for way too long, now."

He played it back, using the flow chart to notate a few simple changes, then read aloud four more times, till he was totally satisfied that it conveyed a hopeful but exhausted tone. Jon would understand that a hell of a lot better than the truth, and this version of events glossed over anything that might incriminate T'Pol. She hadn't been home in years; it was only logical that she'd have family stuff going on. No one would even question that.

He was more on the hook than she was – what he'd said made it almost a given that Phlox was going to want to check him over before certifying him fit, and he was going to have to come clean with the doctor about the mass consumption of alcohol. But he figured that was a safety valve. If Phlox found a problem, he'd have to deal with it before he came back. Trip was pretty sure his own judgment had been shot to hell by Vulcan marriage customs and tequila; he couldn't trust himself to know whether he was fit or not. And there was the added bonus that Phlox knew about him and T'Pol – well, at least about the first couple of encounters. No way to hide the evidence, when that damned Sphere-builder had knocked him out cold with a perfect brand-new little set of T'Pol's dental records on his shoulder, and her DNA in places it could only get one way.

If he needed to talk, he could say more to Phlox than anyone else. Still couldn't scratch the surface, but it just might help him get through it.

Trip listened to the message once more, then got up, blew out the candle, and went downstairs.

l


	19. The Cut Worm

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _I know the story isn't rolling out as fast as it was - April I gave to Trip and T'Pol, but other, non-Trek characters already have a claim to May, June, and July. August I rest, but I'll have another TnT story each day in September, if all goes well._**

 ** _Until then, I will be adding a chapter to this story and "A Backdrop of Stars" each week, or maybe a bit more often if life cooperates._**

 ** _Thank you to all who take the time to read, and even more to those who review. Writers love finding out what you think - and some of those reviews are really challenging my to think, and even gain new insight - Rishooter and Cap'n Frances, I'm looking at you!_**

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene - which occurs after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 ** _Trip takes some big steps toward healing._**

 _ **This is T rated for alcohol use and sexual themes.**_

 _ **"The Cut Worm"**_

Whatever had happened between Trip and his friend Malcolm, it seemed like it was a turning point. Trip came downstairs with his old school PADD, and asked Malcolm to give it to Captain Archer. Then he'd stayed downstairs for dinner. He'd been avoiding that, till then. He'd eat breakfast on the go, moving from one project to another like he was afraid to stop. He'd have lunch with them, because he could always claim that he had to get back to something. He barely sat still at the table for ten minutes before he was off again. He wouldn't stop until the need for tequila drove him up into his room.

She'd been worried about that; not sure whether it was good that he wasn't toting a bottle everywhere he went anymore, or a bad one that he was drinking all alone, even if he wasn't doing a thing to hide it. As a matter of fact, he was completely honest, as though what he was doing was bothering him. "Goin' to go drink myself t' sleep," he'd say, and she and Charlie would pretend they couldn't hear him crying, or the yells when he had nightmares.

That was agony for Kath, but she'd gone to him the first time, and, once he woke up, he was shaken and angry with her. "Don't you dare try to pick my brains and steal my secrets, Mama! I'm a grown man, damn it! I don't need a mother hen!" He hadn't been all the way awake, and it was his first night home, when he was still drunker than she'd ever seen him, even after that time he stole his dad's bottle and ate the worm. He hadn't seemed to remember it when he came to, but he'd been locking his door every night since.

Apparently, he preferred to suffer whatever this was on his own, and as silently as he could manage. That said it was big. Trip had never held small things in; he'd never seemed to learn how. Only when it was bad enough to break him did he hang on to it as though he was afraid of what would happen if he let go.

Last night, though, there hadn't been a nightmare. And, though she wasn't sure, she thought he hadn't cried as much. And this morning, he'd actually smiled. It was a sad little smile, for sure, with barely any dimple. But even a peek of sun was nice after a week of overcast.

A ray of hope amid the weight of whatever was pulling him down into a tequila bottle, and kept him grounded while his beloved engines floated up there. He didn't even talk about _Enterprise_ , or when he might be going back.

He'd sat down long enough to drink a quick cup of coffee – strong and black, she noticed. He used to like it so sweet that she teased him about whether he'd rather just put coffee into some maple syrup. Was it a survival technique, from those days out there in the Expanse, stopping the Xindi from destroying Earth?

"Hey, Mom?" He'd gotten up with his mug, and was standing there, looking out the kitchen window with that stare that said that he wasn't really seeing or registering the view.

"Mmm." Kath was afraid to say too much.

"I was wondering- if it's not too much trouble, I was wondering if I could – well, if I could have a few people over, sometime in the next few days?"

"This is your home, if you want it to be, Trip. For as long as you need it to be."

"I don't think I'm up to entertaining, exactly, but I was thinking I might like to have Malcolm, Jon, and Doctor Phlox down for a barbeque. Nothing fancy, and only for a couple of hours. I need to figure some things out, and that might help."

"And you want food for this barbecue of yours, right?" She resisted the urge to hug him – he looked like he was only halfway here, with a tension in his arms and shoulders that said he was trying hard to put on a brave front. Better not to take any chance of upsetting whatever equilibrium he might have fond.

"Nothin' fancy," he said, again. "Burgers, deviled eggs, a nice veggie plate, some corn and potato salad and greens."

"What, no pecan pie?" she teased.

"No pie." His voice changed, and he picked up the bottle he'd left alone all morning, splashing generously into his mug before refilling it with coffee. He gulped it despite the heat steaming off it, and dragged his hand over his eyes quickly before turning to look at her. "No, no pie," he sad again, more softly. "Might never eat _pie_ again." His voice broke, but he forced a smile for her, and said, "Thank you, Mom. I think it's high time I came back to the land of the living. Not sure I know how the hell to do it, but I need to stop feelin' sorry for myself, and started trying to figure that out."

* * *

Trip had been working himself hard nearly ever since he asked about the get-together, like he couldn't think about it. But, after lunch, he'd gone upstairs, and, when he appeared again, he was freshly showered, and the new beard had been trimmed, giving him an older, more dignified look, especially around the mouth that couldn't quite seem to manage a smile.

"I thought I'd give you a hand, since you're doing all this for me."

"I told you, Trip, it's a blessing. This place still feels a lot like we're just here visiting. We don't really know anyone well enough to tell our story, and that means we haven't really had anyone over yet. You're helping us make this our home."

"Well, I'm still willing to help, unless you _want_ to do it all yourself. Don't want to get in your way."

"I'd love your help, or even if you just want to sit and keep me company. You don't even need to talk, if you don't feel like it. It's just a treat even to look over there and see you sitting there -" She almost said, "safe and sound," but bit it back in time. Trip knew he wasn't either one, and he knew that she knew it, too. It would just be cruel to remind him.

"I've never been good at sitting around watching someone else work, Mom. You know, I don't have a resequencer at my apartment in San Francisco; I used to do all my own cooking. I might just surprise you – I mean other than taking a header into your zinnia bed, I mean."

"Trip."

As always, that got his full attention. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiled. "Let go of the way you got here, Boyo." She hadn't called him that in years, but something coiled and tight in him loosened, just a little, and she was glad that she'd said it. "I am just so glad you came home. You could have burned down this house, and I wouldn't care. It's only started to feel like home since you got here. That zinnia bed you're so worried about was here when we moved in; everything was. I haven't exactly been doing much more than that breathing I told you about, this last year or so."

"Did _anyone_ get out of this without breaking?" It was a bitter edge, and he splashed some more tequila and downed it without seeming to notice that he did it. Kath knew, by his voice. Whatever it was had to spill out of him before his guests got here. He needed to get it out, before he could start to heal. Right now, it was festering in him, poisoning him. The tequila was just a means to an end.

But she needed to give him the space to do this his way, to cushion the blow of what was coming, for both of them. She felt other peoples' pain deeply, and the more she loved them, the stronger her natural empathy for them. She didn't want to break down when the man who had been her beautiful laughing Sunshine Boyo told her about things so dark and ugly that they'd taken away his joy.

"I think a cucumber would be the perfect complement for this veggie platter." Kath didn't look at him; she knew him well enough to keep her eyes on the emerging buffet. Whatever it was, he hadn't taken his tongue out of his cheek since the last tequila, and his breath was coming out in little sharp puffs, the way it had when he was a toddler.

That toddler had turned into a broken man, but some things never changed.

Trip went to the stasis unit without a word, but then stood there with a knife dangling in one hand, and the other on the handle. "When's the last time this was serviced, Mom?"

Kathleen laughed. "Serviced? Trip, it's brand new, like everything else in this house. And you're not – I repeat, _not_ – going to take out your frustrations on my kitchen the way your dad let you with his stuff. I use this kitchen every day. That's an _order._ "

"Who says I'm frustrated? Just restless, is all."

Kathleen let him hang onto the lie – he was already facing up to whatever it was as well as he could. No need to make him deal with any more of it than he could take. More than that, he probably had only just now gotten the chance to really start grieving for Elizabeth.

"Frustrated, restless, grumpy, drunk, or sleepy, Boyo, you're not taking my appliances apart, and that's final. Lots to do around here if you're restless, like maybe cut a cuke or two." She gestured at the unit meaningfully, and that knife he seemed to have forgotten he was holding...

Her mother's instincts screamed to throw her arms around her son. When he'd set off on that first mission, he'd still been her affable, endlessly optimistic Trip. Now he wasn't; life had fractured him in some way she didn't understand yet, and she was getting the idea that he was never going to be quite as easygoing and pure as he'd been back then. That made her sad, but it was also life, and there was only so much a mother could do to protect her children –

Sometimes, she couldn't do a damned thing to protect them. Sometimes, they were vaporized with no warning at all, and there was nothing left of them, not even a trace of DNA.

No. She wasn't going to cry right now. Not in her kitchen; not while Trip was here and hurting. Not when she still had a child left that she could help.

Trip gave himself a little shake, lifted the knife to frown at it, then turned and set it carefully back on the cutting board. "Need to pay better attention to what I'm doing." He went back to the stasis unit, opened it smoothly, and brought out the cucumbers – two, rather than just one. "Never saw anyone who loved these things as much as she does – not that she'd be caught dead admitting to loving _anything,_ but she could pack away two or three at a time, easy. Made her burp little tiny burps, but she denied it, _always_ denied it…"

Kath wondered who he was talking about. _Enterprise_ had lost twenty-seven members of its crew, according to the news reports. There'd been a list of names, but Kath hadn't been able to look at it. She was thrilled that her son had come home alive, but she was all too aware of the pain those other mothers were dealing with. Her own loss was still too raw for her to be able to handle theirs. But Trip had said that nearly a third of the crew was women. That made good odds that some of the dead were female. Was he remembering one of them?

But he didn't say anything else, just stood there staring at the two cucumbers, as though he didn't realize that he'd spoken aloud. She couldn't ask, because of that. But if that much had come out, the rest was going to follow soon enough. Kathleen prepared herself for the onslaught. When Trip had been holding something in, it always poured out of him like a tidal wave, rising and rising until there was nothing left to pour out.

Not yet, though. He shook himself again, as though he needed to do that to recalibrate. He was still puffing out his breaths, though, and his shoulders were even tenser as he put the cukes next to the knife. And then he was staring at them again, tracing two fingers along the side of one in a way that reminded her uncomfortably of the way a man might caress a lover.

Kathleen held back an urge to sigh deeply, turning it into a breath. Pushing him never helped. He'd talk in his own time, and torment himself until then. Maybe he'd cared about one of those women. He hadn't mentioned anything, but he'd never been the type to crow about his love life. For all that he was open about everything else, he seemed to respect his women too much to make their private lives a matter of public speculation. She smiled to herself; she and Charlie had raised their boys to be gentlemen. It was nice to know that it had taken.

She went back to watching the eggs she was boiling – there's no way Trip or Charlie were going to let her get away without making deviled eggs. She stared at the bubbling water, and moved the eggs around in the kettle, even though there was no good reason to do so, other than it was something to do.

"Somethin' wrong, Mom?"

She hadn't even heard him come up behind her, but now he was only a step back, frowning at her.

"Why do you ask?"

"You haven't said anything in about three minutes. That's not like you."

"You're quiet yourself, lately, Trip." She didn't ask if he wanted to talk about it; it was obvious that even if he did, he couldn't, not yet.

"Let me drain that for you." He didn't so much change the subject as he simply didn't seem to acknowledge what she'd said. He'd never been evasive; he must've learned some avoidance techniques out there. Why would he need to be evasive?

She let him have his way again, and didn't call him on it. He wasn't the young exuberant man who'd left, full of his boundless energy and hopes for all the adventures he was about to have as "a real live explorer." But reality had obviously been very different from what he'd imagined.

She moved aside instead, and turned to the island. "I'll cut the cucumber, then -"

"No!" His voice cracked, and the kettle clanged against the porcelain sink. "Damn – I chipped it. Sorry, Mom – but please don't. I want to cut it. Maybe I _need_ to cut it." He didn't crack open as fast as he used to, but he _was_ cracking open. She kept things light.

"This place was too new – it needs a little Tripification." She turned back and reached up to wrap an arm around his shoulder, noticing how hard and rigid he was. He'd always taken care of himself – but this was different. Almost like what she imagined the inflexibility of a soldier would feel like.

What the hell had happened to him out there? What had he sacrificed?

She felt a tiny hiccup go through him – and she knew. That was a tell he'd had all his life.

He'd sacrificed something he loved fiercely – no, something he still did love; something he couldn't figure out how to live without. When he was two, it was his favorite toy screwdriver. He'd left it on the grass in the front yard, and Charlie hadn't seen it when he mowed the lawn. When he was six, it was Bedford, their huge shaggy Irish Wolfhhound, who had suffered a sudden and unexpected heart attack. When he was sixteen, it was Simone, the first girl he'd loved, who turned out to love someone else more, and then someone else, and someone else, and someone else…

Kathleen thought of what he'd said about the cucumber. This was a woman he'd lost, then. Not Elizabeth – for one thing, she'd always hated cucumbers. And the way he'd touched the vegetables, and seemed to have taken a jealous attitude about them – those made her a lover, unless Kath missed her guest.

Oh, damn.

Trip shrugged out from under her arm, then wrapped his around her waist and gave her a squeeze. "Well, consider it Tripified, Mom – and the eggs drained. I'm going to get on that cucumber now."

Had he been seeing someone on _Enterprise?_ Was he in love with her? Had she been one of the dead?

He hadn't mentioned anyone special.

"She'd love so much of this – never thought about how many things we both like – cukes, guacamole, salsa – although she can eat it a helluva lot hotter than I'd dream of trying – salad. She wouldn't touch the eggs, though – and she likes her tea hot no matter the weather – chamomile, just like you, Mom – and of course no meal is complete without that plomik broth of hers…I swear, woman's blood's gotta be about 90% vegetable base, which might explain – YOW!"

The knife clattered to the floor as Trip jumped back, swearing in a way that would've embarrassed him, once, his face white as he clutched his left hand with his right, blood dripping down too fast for this to be a minor cut.

"Let me see." She didn't wait for permission; she just took his hands and led him back to the sink, his blood falling on the drained and waiting eggs, vividly red against the white. There was a long gash across his palm, and it looked deep – but clean. She yanked open the cloth drawer and bound it quickly. "You hold that – good and tight, now - while I get the first aid kit out of the cupboard."

Trip stopped swearing, but he was still grunting in pain. "You'd make a helluva doctor, Mom."

"Is that the best compliment you know how to give a woman, son?" She came back with the kit to find him already poking at the wound, the rag dripping uselessly over his wrist. "If so, no wonder you don't seem like it's gotten you anywhere. I told you to put pressure on it."

"I never was very good at listening to directions I didn't like. Just ask - " He bit back the name, and made a small, wincing shrug. "And maybe I'm just outta practice."

Another small crack in the dams he'd built up against the flood of hurt. Kath made a small sound of agreement, and ran the hand scanner over his bleeding wound. "Nothing seriously damaged, thank goodness. I can use the knitter on it; it'll be good as new in five minutes." She knew how to use evasiveness, too, and she'd had decades more practice at it.

"There's no logic whatsoever in complimenting a Vulcan – as she'd be the first to tell me, if I dared to try –" He cut himself off again, biting his lip.

Kath acted like she hadn't noticed his mutter as she ran the cleanser beam over the wound. He used his good hand to hide the injured one, trying not to wince. "Once I've got this closed, I'll get you a hypo for the pain. Until then, it's better if you can relax. This will only take a few minutes if you behave yourself and hold still."

Surprisingly, he cracked a half-grin that turned into a grimace as she positioned the wounded hand. "Ouch – I never realized how much she sounds like you, sometimes. Wonder if that has something to do with how I feel about her –"He drew a deep breath, then blurted out, "Mom, how the hell do I stop thinking about that damned infuriating woman?" He yanked his hands up, making the knitter shriek an alarm and shut down as his blood splattered with the motion. "Sorry, Mom. Woman drives me to distraction, even sixteen light years away. If she's still there, that is. Not that I've got any clue, or really have any right to know, after what I did."

Wouldn't be long before he poured it all out, now. Kath steeled herself, trying not to be incredulous that the woman he seemed to be talking about was the lovely but remote young Vulcan woman who'd stared emotionlessly from every image she'd seen of her. Could Trip have fallen for Sub-commander T'Pol? Is that why he went with her to Vulcan? Had Jon even asked him? Why would she bring him? Everyone knew that Vulcans were an insular species.

She focused on the task at hand to distract herself.

"No more talking with your hands, Trip, or you're going to make this worse. Blood all over my kitchen isn't _my_ idea of Tripification. Scuff things up, take them apart, upgrade them, chip or scratch them – those things just make a house look lived in. But no one's going to want to come here if it looks like I massacred my son in the kitchen."

"Sorry, Mom."

"As for how to stop thinking about her – why do you want to?" She didn't make any mention of the woman's identity. Sub-commander T'Pol had survived, so this was something else. Better not to make any assumptions.

Trip choked on a sob. Not the pain of the wound. The pain of a broken heart. Pain that came out in his near yell.

"Because she's married to _someone else_! Because I damned well _stood_ there, dressed in those ridiculously heavy robes in the middle of a damned _desert,_ and _watched_ her do it, knowing the whole time it was _wrong_ , that she's going to be _miserable_ married to that guy her parents picked for her when she was just a _little girl_ , and never even _telling_ her how much _I love her_ – "

Something didn't mesh, here. There was a lot more to this story. But Trip wanted to talk, wanted to get this out in the open. If he was in love with the First Officer, she could see why he wanted to get it said before the others got here. She needed to help him, but carefully.

"If she's Vulcan – "

"Oh, she's _Vulcan_. To the tips of her gorgeous pointed ears. Ears that guy's never likely to nibble – " Trip got a little redder, and Kathleen had a sudden realization. He'd either nibbled those ears, or wanted to. But, a _Vulcan_? She tried to picture it, and failed. Better let that go till later.

"All right," Kath said, as she monitored the knitter. "Now keep still. She's Vulcan. Would it matter to her, how you feel? _Could_ it?"

Another deep breath, and his pain was stark on the newly bearded and lined face. "I dunno. I thought – aww, hell, Mom. There's no way to talk about it without embarrassing us both, so I hope you forgive me."

"I keep telling you, Trip. You're a grown man. I know you have sex, and want to have sex, and that you like women. I might not usually want to dwell on it, any more than you want to think of your dad and me that way, but, if you need to talk about it, I'll listen."

"All right then. Well– all the way to Vulcan – that's sixteen light years, so about five days – we never bothered to get dressed. We barely got out of _bed_. We slowed down a bit at her mother's – I know too much about how good Vulcan hearing is – but, even then…Mom, they _sprang_ it on her, damned near _forced_ her. She said it was her choice, but, being who she is, knowing what was at stake – she _couldn't_ say no."

"But you think she wanted to." She was still trying to absorb that her son had apparently been having sex with the Vulcan, but she couldn't see how that would possibly work. Trip was adventurous, but how would you even know a Vulcan was _interested_?

"After – after the wedding – damn, I'm really not proud of this – but anyway, I got good and drunk, and then I kept right on drinking. She gave me a gift – no, not talking about _that_ – and she kissed my cheek before she went to Koss – anyway, I passed out, and I dreamed I was with her – only, it wasn't a dream, and there she was, and I – Mom, I _didn't stop_ …not even when I knew she _couldn't_. I said it was because she needed me – but it was also because I _wanted_ her – " That hurt said that he still did, and that this love wasn't going anywhere, whatever T'Pol's marital status.

"Oh, Trip -" Kathleen wished that he was still little, that fixing his 'boo-boos' was as simple as a skin knitter and a kiss on the sore place. Pecan pie and hugs. "I'm sorry."

"Maybe I'd better quit – or transfer. Because Starfleet offered her a commission, and if she accepts it, and I have to see her, live with her, and know she's not mine, and isn't ever going to be, but we both want each other – Mom – what if we're not strong enough to resist each other?"

Was he imagining this? Maybe not the lovemaking – the Vulcan woman's clothes didn't do anything to hide an extremely feminine figure, so that maybe meant that her people reproduced pretty much the same way humans did, even if that seemed like it would be a clinical procedure. But a Vulcan couldn't actually _love_ him, could she?

"What if you _aren't_ strong enough? What if you _are_? Have you thought to ask _her_ these questions, Trip? You said she came to you after her wedding– maybe marriage vows don't mean the same thing, to her people."

He looked at her with teary gratitude. "Thanks for taking this seriously, Mom. I know how it must sound to you, a Vulcan having sex, but it's not like that. Believe me, _she's_ not like that -"

"Charles Anthony Tucker the Third, I am not willing to sit here and let you tell me about your inter-species sexual exploits. Knowing you have sex doesn't mean I want details -"

"Mom, I'm supposed to be a _gentleman_. I haven't been so great at that, lately, but I'm tryin' hard not to make it worse. I just want you to understand that I'm not talking about a fling or an -" he smiled just a little, like at an inside joke. "An exploration. Believe it or not, T'Pol is a passionate woman with deep emotions. She wouldn't say love – not specific enough, and being passionate doesn't mean that she's not still Vulcan – but we had _something_ there, Mom. Something that made the – well, the sex – a hell of a lot more than just messing around."

"Well, don't you think it would be a good idea to learn exactly what a Vulcan marriage is, Trip? Or that you should find out what _she_ wants?"

"I may have missed my chance already, Mom. That's what's eating at me."

"Mmm," Kath said again. But she was thinking, "Here it comes."

"She – well, she was still sleeping, when I left, and I didn't say goodbye. It's – well that part's complicated, and Vulcans – they really, _really_ value privacy, so I can't tell you – but she probably wasn't rational when she woke up. That's right – I got scared, and a ran off like a thief in the night, even knowing she was gonna have to deal with her mom. T'Les is a good mother, but she's not like you, Mom. It's not the same for Vulcans as it is for us; the parents have a lot of control even after they grow up. I promised – I promised to protect her from herself at – at times like that. But, Mom, I _didn't_ – and, married to Koss or not, I still _love_ her – so what the hell was I thinking, running away and leaving her like that, leaving the whole damned _planet_ without even telling her where I was going, and then getting wasted all over again, and again, and again?"

"Trip." Kathleen could see the knitter was done, but she left it. He might hold still a bit longer, long enough for her to say what she needed to. "Son, I can't tell you what's right or wrong for either of you. She's not human, and I don't know her. But I know you well enough to know you love her, and, if you hurt her, you didn't do it out of cruelty. She hurt you by getting married – but it sounds like even you know that wasn't her intent, either. Am I on track so far?"

"Can't argue with a thing you said." He sagged, but kept his hand still for her. "What the hell am I supposed to do with all these feelings. Mom – Mama - I love her more than anyone, ever. That's not going to change, not ever. I won't ever find anyone else like T'Pol. There _isn't_ anyone else like her, not on either of our planets. For so many reasons, she's one of a kind. Her Vulcan husband – he's a decent sort, and he won't hurt her, but there's no way he can understand her or what she needs the way I can. Bein' out there – it changed her. Changed me. Changed us all, in ways we can't ever change back."

She took the knitter off, because he was really crying now. Trip didn't protest when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. "I know it did, Boyo. I'm so sorry for you, and for her – for all of you who paid the price."

"She's supposed to be married to _me_ , Mama. _My_ wife. So I can take care of her, and she can take care of me, and we can just be together the way we're meant to be. How can _Koss_ know how to help her when he doesn't even know how to _kiss_ her?"

"I don't know, Trip. I could say something trite, like 'love always finds a way,' but the truth is, it doesn't. I could tell you to forget her, but I can tell that's not something you can do, not even when you're drunk."

"Can't argue with that, either." He was moving past the tears, but the pain made his voice hoarse. "But what's worse is this feeling I have that _she_ can't forget _me_ , either. And if she stays on that world where no one ever wants to talk about their feelings, where the language doesn't even have _words_ for the things she feels, where everyone's so damned sure that we're an inferior species, she'll probably be ostracized for what we did together – Mom, I was wrong to leave her there. She's used to being strong, but she's defenseless against her own culture."

"But it _is_ her culture, and her family, and her home, Trip. You're talking like you've condemned her to a life sentence, but all you did was leave her home."

"Mom, you don't understand. Something _happened_ to her out there. I can't tell you what; it's classified, but I wouldn't anyway, because it's hers to tell, not mine. But I can tell you that it means she can't fit into the neat little boxes Vulcan culture wants to put everyone in, and, if she _tries_ to fit in, she's going to have to slice herself to metaphorical shreds to do it. I can tell you that I'm mad as hell at myself, Mom – but I'm a whole lot more terrified _for_ _T'Pol_. She needed me, maybe more than she ever has, and I left her asleep in the one place that can't understand how she's different, or value what that means for her."

Kath didn't try to pretend she really understood. It was enough, maybe, that _he_ knew what he meant, that he was breaking the death grip he'd had on his fear and guilt. She could feel the futility he'd come here with shifting into something he could use as motivation. "If I follow what you're saying, you were drunk when she came back to you."

"Shitfaced. Sorry, Mom, but it's the truth."

"You don't need to apologize. I've been there a time or two myself, Boyo. Watching someone you love do something you know is a mistake, and not being able to stop it seems like reason enough. So you were shitfaced, and she was – not fully in control?" Delicate. They were talking about an alien; Kath didn't know any Vulcans personally. She wasn't sure what 'not in control' meant for T'Pol.

"Next to her, Mom, I probably looked stone cold sober." He sat up, scrubbed at his face with his hands, only then seeming to notice his repaired hand. "You and Phlox should hit it off well; I forgot what a nice job you do."

"You've given me more than my fair share of practice." She had something still that she wanted to say to him, but a bit of a breather was going to be good for both of them.

"That's something else you and Phlox have in common. He's awarded me Most Frequent Visitor status, which means I get the honor of cleaning out his Pyrithian bat's cage every two weeks." He straightened his shoulders, and found another of those faint smiles. "Thanks, Mom. For everything."

"It's all part of the service." He started to get up. It was now, or maybe never. "Trip."

"You know, I never realized until I came home that she says my name just like that when she wants my attention, too. Or she did, anyway. Wonder if I'll ever get to hear her call me Trip again." A deep and shaky breath, then, "There's more, isn't there?"

"Just something that might help. You know my mother died when I was only thirteen, but she had a saying she used sometimes, something from an old writer named William Blake. 'The cut worm forgives the plow.'"

"I don't have any idea what that's supposed to mean. Maybe my brain's too pickled."

"You hurt each other, but that's not what either of you wanted to do. Maybe you can forgive her; maybe she can forgive you. Maybe, from her point of view, you didn't do anything that needs forgiving. Maybe you both need to talk it out."

Trip snorted. It wasn't really a laugh, but it's the closest she'd heard from him since he'd woken up in that flower bed. "Oh yeah. I can hear it now – 'ComMANder Tucker, there is no logic in anthropomorphizing a creature not sufficiently evolved to have more than the most rudimentary operational brain functioning. It's even less logical to assume that the worm has any understanding of what has occurred, or the capacity or intent to forgive such a traumatic, and potentially fatal, injury.'"

"Exactly," Kath said, getting up and turning away, so that he wouldn't see her smiling.

"What the hell's _that_ supposed to mean, Mom?"

If she'd doubted he could love a Vulcan, the way he spoke would have been proof enough. She still didn't know how T'Pol felt about all this, but she was a lucky woman, whether she realized it or not.

She'd seen a report or two on _Enterprise's_ Vulcan, as the media liked to call her. Kath had no doubt that the Sub-commander was an extremely intelligent woman. She suspected T'Pol knew that Trip was something special. And she had a feeling maybe neither of them was done with the other.

But she wasn't going to give him hope just to see it dashed back down. Especially when it sounded like there were a hell of a lot of obstacles in the way, even if they both decided they wanted to be together, and it wasn't going to be easy for either of them to navigate their course to one another. But Trip was a fine engineer, and any Vulcan willing to spend years among humans in such close quarters had to be good at figuring things out, too.

If she was as motivated as Trip seemed to be, Kath was betting there wasn't anything that would keep them apart for too long. Maybe she should feel bad for the husband in this picture, but it didn't seem like it was even supposed to be a love match. And Kath Tucker believed in love, more than she believed in societal obligations that crushed souls.

"You can think it over while you clean up the kitchen and make some more eggs," she told him, knowing he'd need to stew and fume and get past his own feelings before he was willing to look at it, well, logically. "Oh, and don't forget to cut the cucumber, Boyo – carefully, this time. I'm going to go change my clothes."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n Mom," Trip smiled; it wasn't his natural grin, but it was more than he'd had before, and there was something more relaxed in his voice and the way he looked at her, then moved briskly to start doing what she'd told him to do.

She watched for a minute or two, but he never even glanced at the half-bottle of tequila just beyond his elbow.


	20. Mystery Vulcan

_**Author'**_ _ **s**_ _ **Notes**_ _ **:**_

 ** _I've come up with a way to get chapters out a bit faster - hopefully, one or two a week, and maybe a little more frequently. I've got other, non-Trek project prioroities for May, June, and July. August I rest up a bit, but I'll have another TnT story each day in September, if all goes well. _**

**_Thank you to all who take the time to read, and even more to those who review. I love finding out what you think and feel about these stories, and some of your reviews are leading to greater insight - Rishooter and Cap'n Frances, I'm looking at you!_**

 ** _Disclaimer and Story Notes in Chapter One, "Promises and Choices"._**

 _ **T** **his is an extrapolated "might-have-been"** **missing scene occurring after** **"** **Home** **"** **.** **S** **poilers** **for that episode.**_

 ** _While Trip takes some big steps toward healing (see previous two chapters, "Learning to Live Again" and "The Cut Worm."_**

 _ **This is a short setup chapter...leading to some surprises. Nothing more than K+ in this one.**_

 **Mystery Vulcan**

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Commander." Talas looked up from her sensor display. "One life form, Vulcan, female. She may be injured; her biosigns are -"Her antennae canted back as she paused, searching for a descriptor.

"Are _what_ , Lieutenant?" Shran wasn't known for patience, but he found himself more irritated when in close quarters to the highborn young woman.

She took a quick breath, her antennae snapping forward in aggression; she was known for having a temper allowable only for someone of her social standing. He needed to remember that. "Unusual, Commander. Not what we've come to expect, from her kind." Her voice was colder than winter on the surface of the pole, and there was scorn in the way she spoke his rank.

"Weapons?" He made a point to soften his voice. It wasn't her fault he wanted to pull her in close and be certain that she knew how comely he found her.

"None on the courier, and nothing that registers as a weapon in proximity to the woman." She consulted the screens again, her posture loosening slightly, and Shran was glad that he'd made the effort to be courteous. "There are several items that might be survey or medical equipment."

"Why would she be here alone?" He paused, leaning in to study the readings. He could feel the warmth of her body, and smell her bath products. "Wait. I know that courier. It belongs to Ambassador Soval. I thought he was back on Earth."

"Maybe this is his wife."

A sharp mind to go with that sharp tongue. A fine woman, and not only on the outside.

But what of the Vulcan woman on the world known as P'Jem? If she was related to Soval, there could be strategic value in either assisting her, or taking her into what he would call protective custody.

She might also be in the wreckage of the former listening post for a covert and dangerous purpose, likely sanctioned by her devious High Command. It wasn't _logical_ to trust Vulcans, even with a treaty in place. What had been discovered here was only one example of their duplicity.

Shran wanted to stay leaning over Talas' work station, but he needed to focus. He straightened and turned to pace the bridge. Everyone else had been serving on the _Kumari_ for years now; they made way for him, so that he didn't need to adjust his habitual path.

A Vulcan in the ruins of the ancient monastery bore watching. She could be valuable.

Taking her with an armed force could bring far more trouble than Shran wanted, if her government objected. And the Vulcan High Command objected to anything involving Andorians.

"I'm going down alone," he said, turning to his second, who somehow knew to be waiting for his decision at that moment. "Prepare a team, and monitor my biosigns. If I lose consciousness, or miss a check-in, don't waste any time. Take her into custody, alive, by any means necessary. We need to know why she's here. After that, I'll decide what strategic value there is in one Vulcan woman and the Ambassador's pretty little ship."

He took the portable information tablet Greth held out to him, and keyed up the topographic map that showed where the woman and the ship were, as well as sensor readings on Soval's unarmed craft. A few more circuits of the bridge, and he sent the plan to Talas' station, and handed the tablet back to Greth.

Shran went to the newly-installed transporting device, refusing to let himself think too much on using it. He inspected the two hand weapons, scanner, and communications device that were already waiting for him, then stepped onto the platform. He didn't want time to think about what was going to happen to his body. Crouching low, Shran nodded to the operator, then closed his eyes.

He felt the platform dissolve beneath his feet, and wanted to hold his breath. But he couldn't feel his lungs or any other part of his body.


End file.
